Recent commercial activities in the deeper regions of seas and oceans have placed increasing demands for higher strength-to-weight ratio tension members with certain improved mechanical properties. Activities such as heavy lifting in subsea regions can impose extreme dynamic loading conditions as well as other environmental factors on ropes used as tension members for those applications. In this paper, some recently developed synthetic fiber and hybrid tension member technologies that may provide solutions for some of these challenging needs are presented. A proposal for a hybrid rope concept is presented which is envisioned to provide for more effective cooling of the rope in high cycle bending applications such as active heave compensated winches. A proposal for numerical modeling and experimental evaluation of heat transfer rates in such a hybrid rope is briefly presented. A short overview of the current ASME B30 standard volumes for land-based crane rope usage and inspection, as well as ISO 4309 and the API 2D standards will also be presented.
Paper published with permission.
