Wire Rope Maintenance – Pick Up Points

This article is from Crane Ropes Australia, which is a sister company of LiftQuip.  The site is a great source of information about Wire Rope, and if this is part of your core business you should take the time to check out the website at www.craneropesaustralia.com.au 

I was scrolling through Linkedin on the weekend and come across what I thought was a great short post on crane wire rope maintenance from a gent called Ed Davidson who works in the Health & Safety Compliance space.

His article was about a crane wire rope that had jumped out of the sheave, ended up on the shaft of the head frame and over a period of time worn through 75% of the shaft before the defect was identified.  The purpose was to highlight the need for inspection on rarely highlighted critical points of the wire rope, with one of those being pick up points.

Pick up points on wire rope and the inspection of these rarely gets talked about, but these are the sections of wire rope that are repeatedly placed under stress during regular lift cycles.  If we use the example of a mine winding rope, when the skip has its initial full load placed in it the section of wire rope that is in contact with the head sheave suffers significant stress.  To alleviate the potential damage to this section of the wire rope, regular ‘crops’ of the rope are done where a small length of wire rope is cut and removed, there in changing the pick up point for subsequent cycles until the next crop.  This example can be carried over to mobile cranes with jobs that involve multiple lifts of the same bit of equipment , where the stress points are repeated over and over, in turn creating potential excessive where in one point and multiple broken wires.

These areas of the wire rope need to be identified and regularly inspected, as well as having the results of those wire rope inspections documented.  Review of the documentation can help when trying to find a solution to the problem and extending the wire rope life.

Another often neglected item from an inspection point of view is the sheaves.  Every sheave in the rope system must be inspected for wear and ideally checked with a groove gauge.  Inspection of the winch drum should receive careful inspection as well, and should be part of an investigation if looking at premature wire rope failure or wear.

If you would like help with identifying the correct maintenance plan for your wire rope and rigging system, the team at Crane Ropes Australia are here to help.