A CONCISE FINITE-ELEMENT MODEL FOR SIMPLE STRAIGHT WIRE ROPE STRAND

Due to its complex geometry, a wire in a rope is subjected to the comb ined effects of tension, sheer, bending, torsion, contact, friction an d possible local plastic yielding when loaded. In this paper an accura te and general strand model using the finite element method (FEM) is p resented. The model is capable of taking into account all the above ef fects and has been successfully used to predict the global behaviour o f simple straight wire rope strand as well as the stress distribution within the wires under axial loads (tensile and torsional). In simplif ying the finite element model, precise boundary conditions were develo ped. The finite element analysis results showed excellent agreement wi th the analytical theory of Costello and the experimental results of U tting and Jones. By using the model developed in this paper, localised highly non-linear phenomena such as contact stress, residual stress, friction and plastic deformation can be studied effectively. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.