Assessment of Strand Damage under Combined Degradation Modes

This paper deals with the influence of broken wires and the combination of broken wires and corrosion on the damage of constitutive strands of a wire rope. It was set that the damage is linear with broken wires. In the case of combined damage, after the first stage where it is nearly linear, it becomes more aggressive in the progressive damage stage. The increment from the artificial damage is about 25%. The brutal damage beguines at 4/7 broken wire when damage is combined against a brutal damage limit at 5/7 broken wire for the artificial damage. The critical life time of the strands was established at 55% in the combined damage, at 60% in the artificial damage, and depending on the loading level, from 70% to 85% with the unified theory. Keywords: Wire rope, damage, reliability, corrosion, broken wire.