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- So we're gonna go ahead and inspect and then look at
this 12 strand HMPE rope here.
First thing we're gonna look at
is our hardware that might be on the sling, that's hooks,
thimbles, any buttons that might be keeping on the winch,
something of that nature.
We're looking for any cracks, gouges, anything that's gonna
cause this to be taken out of service,
is if that needs to be out of service,
and the whole sling needs to be out of service.
Next thing is the Chafe Gear or cut-protection on the sling,
We're checking for any rips or holes in the chafe gear,
any extreme abrasion,
because if there's a problem with the chafe gear
then there might be a problem with the rope underneath.
Next thing we're gonna look for is the tag,
the all important tag and, and the markings,
just with any rigging, any sling, any shackle anything,
there must be complete legible identification and markings
and this gonna have pretty much the same stuff
that your standard wire rope
or chain sling tie is gonna have,
it's gonna show the diameter of the rope,
the length of the rope, serial number, the vertical choker
and basket hitch ratings.
So, all that standard stuff it needs to be fully legible
just with any other type of regular sling.
There is gonna be a gain in diameter
and it's going to slowly get down,
so, we have a one inch sling,
it's gonna be about an inch and a half at the base
of the eye, and it's gonna come down to a one inch sling.
So, that's something that you need to know
so that doesn't throw alarms too.
But, if you got a change in the construction or the diameter
or you will see twist in the rope.
So, it will be actual twist in the rope
will be pretty clear to see,
probably have a distortion of the rope.
Next thing is the External Abrasion,
extreme fuzziness is one clear way to know that
you have External Abrasion.
Pulled-out strands is another way to tell
that you have extreme exterior abrasion.
But if that strain can be worked back into the rope,
just kind of massaging it, working back into the rope
to where you never even know it popped out, you're fine.
Another thing is Cut Strands in a single area.
You're looking for cuts and localized bulging.
Next thing is Internal Abrasion.
Basically when you're going to inspect the rope
for internal abrasion,
you're just gonna open the rope up
as much as you possibly can,
and just kinda get in there and you're looking for
broken yarns, you're looking for fused yarns,
almost like they're melted together.
You're checking for actual dirt and rocks
actually being in there,
and anything that could cause an issue.
Another sign that there is Internal Abrasion,
there will be almost a powdery substance inside there
from where it's actually just kind of polarizing the yarns.
Next thing is Cuts, and the big question I always get
is "how much of a cut's too much for cut?"
Inside a strand,
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you have many yarns and it's kinda like
a wire rope with strands and wires,
except, wire rope, you know, you have 19 wires, 36 wires,
whatever it may be inside an individual string.
With yarns there's just a whole bunch of them
there is no way to count but, if 50% of a strand,
this is one strand, if 50% of that strand is cut,
or more, then that's when it is removal criteria.
If you have 25% of that strand cut,
you can still go with it.
The last one, Heat Damage,
signs of Heat Damage are, of course, are melting
and few strands,
which result in a big reduction in diameter
which we were talking about within the Internal Abrasion.
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This was actually broken in our test but,
in a controlled break, and you can see that one side
gave out, while the other side pretty much stayed intact.
So, everything's still good here.
Even as we go down, we can see at this point,
we have a popped up strand,
so, that's obviously remove four criteria.
Distortion, which we talked about,
first, distortion in the construction of the rope.
You can see as you're going down through here
that there are many different diameters,
We got the big break here where there's the splice,
we talked about that being one and a half times
the diameter of the rope to begin with,
We've gone down here, you can see
it starts to get really small,
right here where there's a cut strand,
gets a little bit bigger, gets smaller again,
and then as you get up here,
it really starts to distort badly
because from the base of the eye
that's where it should be the biggest,
but you can see it actually gets small here,
and everything kind of bunched down right here.
So, we definitely had an overloading situation
with the distortion the construction of the rope.
Then, here in this marked area, we marked with black tape
just so we can clearly see what we're looking at here.
This is an example of a half-cut strand.
So, we said a strand is out of service
or a sling is out of service once a strain
is cut 50% or more.
If all this was still intact, and we just had this one
little piece of strand here out, that wouldn't be 50%,
and we could still roll with a sling.
So that's an example of a cut.
And then we keep going down,
we have an example of a full cut.
This is one strand completely separated in half,
and so this one is definitely completely out of service.
And then if you look in the eye where
the actual break happen, you begin to see just examples of
yarns and strands being completely severed,
You could see examples of what the fuzziness might look like
in some of these applications,
and where the overload happened.
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