Who invented wire rope

They say you should never visit the sausage factory, and that may be true, but the wilfully ignorant are not to be trusted, and steel wire rope is certainly a special type of sausage. It was a visit that put me through the emotional spectrum, from disinterested to bemused, to bewildered, and finally awed at the sheer scale of the operation.

Flexible steel wire rope has been one of the mainstays of heavy industry for more than a hundred years. Whether you want to lash down scaff planks, carry out lifting and cranage, use draglines for surface mining, or even pull down a massive statue of Saddam Hussein, wire rope has thousands of applications.

The Wirerope Works factory in Williamsport, Pennsylvania has a long history of producing this essential component of progress in the 20th century, and although cheaper imports from China and India continue to flood the market, the caretakers of the Bethlehem Wire Rope brand are still proud to produce a product of the highest quality on local labour and quality materials. The original mill was built upstream on the banks of the Susquehanna River to service the softwood logging industry, however regular flooding led to the relocation and inevitable expansion of the factory in the town of Williamsport.

The design and manufacture of steel wire rope was no longer in its infancy at that stage. The first practical use of steel rope in was credited to a German mining official named Wilhelm August Julius Albert, who worked at the Clausthal silver mines in Saxony. Up until that point, all mining haulage was done with hemp fibre rope or chains.

In the humid, damp conditions of an underground mine, moisture would cause the ropes to perish from rot, the gradual deterioration reducing their load bearing capacity, so they required frequent replacement. Chains at that time were no better in terms of safety, as the Bessemer process for making steel was not invented until Iron chains lacked elasticity, but were also metallurgically inconsistent and therefore, unreliable.

A single weak link could make a chain prone to catastrophic failure without warning, and there was no way of knowing which might be the weakest. That first incarnation of modern steel wire rope was extremely effective for heavy haulage, and much more reliable than rope or chain. Albert Rope, as it came to be known, was a simple construction of three 3. But the idea for wire rope had already caught on in England, where thinner wires were woven around a fibre core, with six of those strands woven around a central fibre core, resulting in a more flexible product.

This design, as well as a mechanical system for its construction called a strander , was patented by Robert Newall, who brought the new technology to America, and the boom-time economy of the California Gold Rush.

However, it was in Pennsylvania where a German-born engineer and surveyor named John Roebling began to develop ropes which were entirely constructed of wire. A strand built of 19 wires of the same gauge resulted in a hexagonal profile, and desiring a round shape Roebling conceived of using three different gauges of wire to achieve that result.

The effect of this was to reduce the space inside the rope, tightly packing the wires together, which gave the rope greater stability under load. With massive demand for coal haulage in Pennsylvania, as well as cable car applications for public transportation, and most importantly civil engineering projects to service, Roebling set up a wire rope factory in in Trenton, New Jersey.

In only 14 years wire rope had gone from a hand-made experiment in a German silver mine, to a globally recognised tool of industry with high demand for scaled-up production. If Roebling had any hubris about cashing in on this amazing new invention, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a little dampened when his arm and shoulder were horrifically mangled in an accident with one of his stranding machines.

He was a big fan of the expansionist philosophy of Manifest Destiny, and had been very keen on establishing a utopian settlement called Germania now the town of Saxonburg , where people like him trying to escape the brutal oppression of post-Prussian War Europe could be free to make sauerkraut and smoked pork products, unmolested by the authorities.

He had studied in Berlin under the best academics in engineering, architecture, bridge construction, and hydraulics that Germany had to offer. While friction between the individual wires and strands causes wear over the life of the rope, it also helps to compensate for minor failures in the short run. Steel wire ropes were developed starting with mining hoist applications in the s. Wire ropes are used dynamically for lifting and hoisting in cranes and elevators, and for transmission of mechanical power.

Wire rope is also used to transmit force in mechanisms, such as a Bowden cable or the control surfaces of an airplane connected to levers and pedals in the cockpit. Only aircraft cables have WSC wire strand core. Also, aircraft cables are available in smaller diameters than steel wire rope. Static wire ropes are used to support structures such as suspension bridges or as guy wires to support towers. An aerial tramway relies on wire rope to support and move cargo overhead.

Modern steel wire rope was invented by the German mining engineer Wilhelm Albert in the years between and for use in mining in the Harz Mountains in Clausthal, Lower Saxony, Germany.

It was quickly accepted because it proved superior to ropes made of hemp or to metal chains, such as had been used before. In , Scotsman Robert Stirling Newall improved the process further.

In America wire rope was manufactured by John A. They easily take up the load. Nonetheless, the friction between the separate wires and strands that occur when twisted makes up for any flaw.

Wire ropes were first developed as far back as the s from mining hoist applications. Today, wire ropes are used for lifting and hoisting in elevators and cranes, and for mechanical power transmission. Wire ropes can also be used for the transmission of force in the mechanism. You can only find wire strand core in aircraft cables. Furthermore, the diameters of aircraft cables are smaller than that of wire rope. Static wire ropes are often utilized as a support for structures like a bridge suspension, or as guy wires in providing support for towers.

Wire ropes are also used in supporting aerial tramways or to in moving cargo overhead. Most of the wire ropes we have today were invented between and by Wilhelm Albert, a German mining engineer. Due to its durability and superiority to other ropes made of metal chains or hemp, wire ropes were able to gain quick acceptance.

The first wire rope invested by Wilhelm Albert feature three strands having four wires each. He launched a series of experiments with machine-made ropes looking for a way to make strands that were rounder. Meanwhile, one of his customers, the Lehigh Co. This factory now owned by Bridon International--the same company that absorbed the original Smith and Newall companies in the UK , is still in business near Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

And Roebling gave up surveying to concentrate on ropemaking, building a large factory in Trenton, N. Roebling's Three-Size Construction At the time that his factory began operations in Trenton, Roebling achieved the first American advancement in wire-rope theory. Realizing that the defects of six-strand ropes could be corrected by combining wires of different diameters in the strands, he devised a three-size construction now known as Warrington construction.

By starting with a seven-wire strand made of one wire size, Roebling added an outer layer containing 12 wires of two different alternating sizes.

After numerous tests, Roebling's three-size ropes provided slightly better service in some applications. Although the original aim of the invention was to create improved roundness, the new strands yielded a side-effect of even greater significance. Because there was less hollow space within the strand itself, the greater fill-factor permitted the strands to be made by what is known as the equal-lay principle, whereby each wire in an outer layer is cradled by two wires in an inner layer, creating greater support without the effect of internal crossovers.

The importance of the equal-lay principle did not become obvious until the introduction of modern high-speed stranders in the s. Unfortunately, in an accident with his own machinery, Roebling's arm and shoulder were mangled in Several years passed before he regained full mobility.

During this period, he diverted his attention to the construction of wire-cable suspension bridges, for which he is most famous today. This diversion prevented him from fully exploiting the merits of three-size construction. When it was introduced again later, under the name Warrington, many people thought three-size construction was an English invention. Roebling never patented his achievement, so the history of his invention remains obscure.

Meanwhile, during Roebling's recovery, English ropemaking techniques were introduced in California. Smith, remained in California to seek his fortune in the gold fields. After starving for several years, he moved to San Francisco, changed his name to A. Hallidie and launched a wire-rope business in Hallidie devoted himself to the concept of improvements in wire rope tramways for the gold and silver mines of California and Nevada.