Testing of mine shaft ropes

Feb 2000 SCADA/HMI

With the continuous loss of lives in mines more stringent regulations have been implemented to ensure the safety of mine equipment. One of the existing mining regulations requires that ropes used in mineshafts must be tested for minimum breaking strength every six months. Either Lifting Services Mining Services or the CSIR can do the test. Lifting Services Mining Services has commissioned TLC Software to develop a software engineering solution to facilitate its testing process.

These ropes are manufactured according to set standards and each rope is issued with a certificate number and a coil number for identification.

Engineer Pierre Theron at TLC explains how the tensile test program is used during the test: "The end caps of the rope are put into a machine that stretches the rope until it breaks.

"The tensile test program does realtime plotting of the load/force and elongation of the rope being tested. Realtime plotting is initiated at a predefined load to eliminate rope slack. After break detection, the software stops acquisition.

"The user is then able to select an endpoint on the graph to determine the maximum load carried and the total elongation at fracture. Curve shifting is performed to correct the offset caused by initial rope slack. The strain energy, plastic fraction of energy, plastic fraction of elongation, and slope of the graph in the linear region is then calculated." After a test, a certificate with a unique number is issued for the specific test, and the above results are stored into a database. If a piece of the same rope is tested at a later stage, a new certificate number is issued under the old coil number. Different test results/certificate numbers of the same rope/coil number can then be compared which enables LSMS to determine the life span of a rope and to advise a mine when to replace a rope.

Previously, LSMS performed the test by feeding the load and elongation signals into a specialised photoplotter which had a mechanical arm connected to a pen that drew the graph on paper according to signals received.

TLC Software

(011) 463 3860

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