steel wire rope tensile strength factory

The wires of wire rope are made of high-carbon steel. These carbon steel wires come in various grades. Wire ropes are usually made of Extra Improved Plow Steel (EIPS) or Extra Extra Improved Plow Steel (EEIPS) which roughly equivalents to a wire tensile strength of 1960N/mm² and 2160N/mm².

The fill factor measures the metallic cross section of a rope and compares this with the circumscribed area given by the rope diameter. Traditional rope constructions ‘fill’ the rope diameter only up to about 58% with steel. Python® and Compac® wire rope ‘fill’ the rope diameter up to 80% with steel. That is an metallic increase of about 38% which results in a similar increase in rope strength.

The Wire Rope Tensile Strength reported in terms of Minimum Breaking Strength (MBS).  It achieves this rating based on destruction testing at the factory.  In general – every batch will exceed its rating by some amount.  This is done for safety purposes. A more detailed discussion of

Please note that MBS is NOT the safe working load (SWL) or maximum working load (MWL) that the wire is rated at for a given purpose.  Basically, the SWL depends on the MBS and a safety factor chosen by the Design Engineer.

Some wire is coated, and some is naked