Estimating the Fatigue Life of Wire Rope with a Stochastic Approach

A method for estimating the fatigue life of wire ropes for elevators was developed. It is based on the assumption that the fatigue life of a wire rope is determined by the fretting-fatigue life of the wires from which the rope was made. Estimates done on a sample wire rope with this method are consistent with experimental measurements. The method of estimation involves four steps. First, a finite-element analysis is conducted to estimate the pressure between the wires. To take into account the behavior of the whole wire rope and each wire in the stress analysis, a zooming analysis is conducted. Second, a fretting-fatigue test on the wires is conducted to construct a fretting-fatigue database for them. Third, the fatigue life of each wire is estimated from the pressures between the wires and data from the fretting fatigue database. Finally, the fatigue life of the wire rope is estimated from the fretting-fatigue life of the individual wires. The rope's fatigue life estimated with this new method revealed some important findings: (1) the inner wires break earlier than the outer wires, and (2) the residual strength of the wire rope decreases rapidly after decreasing to 80% of the initial residual strength.