What is Wire Rope?
Wire rope itself is a very complicated and delicate tool. Wire ropes are twisted bundles of wire around a core of natural or occasionally metal fibers. A wire rope is made up of several strands of coiled wires. The wires are wound together in one direction to form a strand. The strands are then laced together in the opposite direction to form a wire rope. The wire rope’s core, if made up of natural fibers, is saturated with lubricant at the factory. The outside wires and strands are lubricated with a coating during the processing of the cable. This type of dual lubrication protects the cable during shipment and storage.
Wire rope is a heavy, tensile, strong, weather-resistant hoisting cable made from many small metal filaments wrapped and braided together. You can get a lot of strength and flexibility out of wire rope because the separate wires equalize pressure throughout the bunch and work well with pulleys. We can find wire rope on a modern farm, a fishing boat, and an international dock. Usually wire rope is comprised of steel strands arranged in an array around a central core. This design allows the entire wire to hold a lot of weight and still stay ductile. The individual filaments are wrapped into a bunch called a strand. Several of these strands, perhaps six or nine, are then arranged into an even larger bunch called a wire surrounding a central core, the sheath. Wire rope can be made from steel or iron. For outdoor use, many kinds of wire rope are galvanized so they won’t rust through corrosion. Wire that hasn’t been galvanized is called “bright.” Other types are available with alloys that ad
Wire rope is a flexible steel cord that is extremely strong. Typical uses for wire rope are: hoisting, towing, and anchoring heavy loads. The core is the foundation of a wire rope. The three most commonly used core designations are: fiber core (FC), independent wire rope core (IWRC), and wire strand core (WSC).
DEVELOPING the thought of last month’s article — “Wire Rope — A Machine,” we conclude that wire rope is a highly complex machine — a fact that is little appreciated by the average user. For example, we can take standard “Blue Center” Steel, and is a distinctive hoisting rope, which is 6 x 19 construction, and find that this rope is made up of 114 separate and distinct steel wires, each of these wires specified and drawn to a size held generally within .001”. When it is considered that each of these wires is in contact at three or more points, and comparing these bearing surfaces with the bearing surfaces of machines. it will be seen that this is a complex mechanism, and it should be appreciated as such. There are five standard grades of Wire Rope in general use; namely, iron, cast steel, extra strong cast steel, plow steel and improved plow steel. To this list we add “Blue Center Steel” a distinctive Roebling Product. There are of course other grades of wire fabricated into rope, o
