Failure analysis of a cableway rope

This study is focused on the failure analysis of a cable way rope composed by different wires in which the magnetoscopic analysis has pointed out a significant and abnormal number of failure indications after a relatively short time of service. Such a phenomenon has taken place in one of the longest worldwide cableway plant and it is interesting that the performed microstructural analysis has clearly indicated that the applied steel seems featured by a good soundness of the very fine perlite micro-structure that has not been interested in any way by the decarburation phenomena. Moreover, the realized micro-hardness tests indicate a reliable homogeneity of the strength properties featuring the steel along the wire section. On the other hand, the fractographic analysis clearly indicates that the source of the failure mechanism is the initiation of the cracks in the surface of the z-shaped wire of the outer wire layer in contact with the wires of the inner layer. The coupling of the different results seems to indicate that the most probable cause of the failure mechanism has to be found in the excessive pressure applied on the rope and to the consequent sliding between the external wire layer and the inner adjacent one that produces debris and the nucleation of the crack.