Stress Analysis of Wire Strands by Mesoscale Mechanics

Steel wire ropes have wide application in a variety of engineering fields such as ocean engineering and civil engineering. The stress calculation for steel wire ropes is of crucial importance when conducting strength and fatigue analyses. In this study, we performed a finite element analysis of single-strand steel wire ropes. For the geometric modeling, we used an analytic geometry of space method. We established helical line equations and used the coordinates of the contact points. The finite-element model was simplified using the periodic law. Periodic boundary conditions were used to simulate a wire strand of infinite length under tensile strain, for which we calculated the cross-sectional stresses and inner forces. The results showed that bending and torsion moments emerged when the wire strand was under tensile load. In some cases, the bending stress reached 18% of the tensile stress, and the torsion stress reached 29% of the tensile stress, which means that the total stress was higher than the nominal stress. Whereas in earlier studies, a conservative prediction of nominal stress was not possible, the results of our strength and fatigue analyses were more conservative.