Effect of re-lubrication in extending service life of steel wire ropes

Lubricant in steel wire ropes has several purposes, and one of these is to reduce friction between the wires. During its lifetime, the lubrication condition can change, commonly resulting in rope deterioration. Re-lubrication processes attempt to regenerate the cable back to its initial status. This experimental study aims to determine the effectiveness of re-lubrication in preserving or improving the bending fatigue resistance of steel wire ropes. Previous studies have explored correlations between temperature variations and fatigue life using a well-established experimental setup of rotating bending fatigue tests. In this research, numerous experimental tests have been carried out on this setup by varying the conditions of re-lubrication, to assess how it influences the wire breakage and to understand lubrication's role in bending fatigue life. The test results have demonstrated the critical role played by the factory-applied lubricant and the constraints of an appropriate re-lubrication procedure to achieve sufficient cost-effectiveness.