Bending fatigue behaviour of bearing ropes working around pulleys of different materials

Nondestructive quantitative detection and artificial detection were carried out to study bending fatigue behaviour and failure mechanisms of wire ropes. When working around nylon pulleys, wire ropes exhibit a slowly increasing of fracture rate and total damage in one lay length. The bending fatigue life of wire ropes is twice longer than that of ropes working around steel pulleys. The primary failure mode of wire ropes working around nylon pulleys is fatigue fracture and the fracture surfaces of wires exhibit a wide crack propagation zone and narrow tear zone.