Abstract
THE Safety in Mines Research Board has recently issued Paper No. 94 on “The Deterioration of Colliery Winding Ropes in Service”, which includes the revision of a former paper, No. 50, of the same title. This is a very valuable production, and should be carefully studied by everybody responsible for colliery winding ropes. The paper gives reports on nearly 250 winding ropes, 85 of which have been broken in service; seeing that the number of fatal accidents in 1933 in shafts was only 28 altogether, of which 16 were due to one accident, the subject may be thought unimportant; but nevertheless it deserves study, because the saving of even one life underground is worth while. The authors, Prof. S. M. Dixon, M. A. Hogan and S. L. Robertson, put down the accidents as mainly due to what they have entitled “corrosion fatigue”, which term they use “to describe the phenomenon exhibited by materials subjected to the simultaneous action of corrosion and repeated stressing”, and have entirely neglected the possibility of the phenomenon known as “acid brittle-ness”1 occurring, although they point out (p. 43) that it is quite possible for these ropes to be attacked by acids, or by salts, etc. The authors refer in passing to the B.S.I, tests and point out that torsion tests, a favourite test in Great Britain, are not used on the Continent.
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References
V. E. Hillman, Foundry Trade J., 22, 854 (November 1922).
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Deterioration of Colliery Winding Ropes. Nature 137, 544 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137544a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137544a0