Magnetic rope testing instrument INTROS
General information
Steel rope is subject to deterioration during its service life due to outer and inner corrosion and friction, repetitive bending over sheaves, mechanical damage, overheating, etc. Corrosion and friction reduce the cross-sectional area of the wires of the rope; this is called as loss of metallic area (LMA). Repetitive bending, overheating lead to metal fatigue and consequent broken wires that degrade integrity of the rope in a localized manner; this is called as local flaw (LF).
The strength of a wire rope will reduce throughout its lifetime until the remaining strength is not sufficient to withstand the load being applied. Periodic magnetic rope testing is required to reasonably remove a rope from service in proper time.
Magnetic rope testing (MRT) works by fully magnetizing a section of rope and then detecting and measuring changes to the magnetic field caused by broken wires, corrosion, wear or mechanical damage. MRT simultaneously and quickly detects outer and inner LF in a rope and measures LMA.
MRT instrument is capable of non-destructive inspection of rope in operation on-site as well as newly manufactured ropes prior to them going into service. The results can then be stored and used as a reference for future examinations.
The international standards, such as ASTM E1571, ISO 4309, EN 12927, IMCA LR 004, recognize MRT as a considerable mean to ensure wire rope integrity, and require that inspection instruments magnetize a rope up to the saturation level during inspection.
The MRT instrument INTROS is the dual-function equipment, i.e. it simultaneously inspects a rope for LF and LMA at high speed. It is suitable for any rope application either on-site or during production run. The INTROS kit comprises the magnetic head and the basic unit interconnected with the cable. For inspection, either rope moves through a magnetic head or magnetic head travels along a rope. Compatibility of basic units and magnetic heads depends on the size of magnetic head. The software Wintros, which included in the kit, enables downloading and processing the inspection data.The special release Wintros RTV enables to follow the rope’ traces on-line.
By using the adapter MH-PC interface device, magnetic heads MH-24M, MH6-26, MH22-45, and MH40-70 can be directly connected to a computer for recording data and on-line displaying traces on the screen.
