Summary

This paper presents the results of a development collaboration for a multi-factorial condition monitoring system, that can be used in running high performance fiber ropes and can record and display relevant rope properties in real time.

The system presented is based on embedding sensor electronics inside the rope at regular intervals, which are electrically connected with each other.

Relevant rope properties such as elongation per rope increment or temperature can be measured in real time. Measurements are performed either directly in a single sensor node or via signal propagation time between distinct nodes.

A prototypical measurement system was developed and tested for serialization and deployment in operational environments.

Author(s): B. Ernst, M. Ferrari