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Wire Rope Maintenance: Reduce Costs, Increase Safety

Selecting a preservative-lubricant.

There are literally hundreds of wire rope lubricants available. When selecting a wire rope preservative-lubricant it is important to note the base oils, additives, and method of application, frequency of application, environment, and application.

Base Oils

The function of a base oil is to act as a carrier for the additives and provide lubrication. Base oils range from greases to low viscosity penetrating oils and may be manufactured utilizing petroleum or vegetable compounds.

Low viscosity preservative-lubricants offer the greatest penetration into a wire rope allowing the additives to provide inner-strand corrosion protection and increase lubricity between the wires. The disadvantage of these products is that they do not offer much boundary lubrication between the wires, which may result in drippage.

High viscosity preservative-lubricants or greases offer the greatest surface protection against corrosion; however, once grease has cracked, flaked off, or exposed parts of the wire it offers little protection because of its inability to penetrate into the wire rope. Moisture will accumulate under the grease causing inner-strand attack while the thick outer coating will mask these problems from visual inspection. Additionally, the lack of penetration into the wire rope prevents a grease from providing lubricity between the strands of the wire rope.

Medium viscosity preservative-lubricants will penetrate into a wire rope providing inner-strand lubricity and corrosion protection without run-off during application or under load.

There are dozens of different base oils for wire rope lubrication. For practical purposes we speak of these in two general groups: petroleum and vegetable oils. Petroleum products have been used as the preferred lubricant for the past 100 years because of their price and availability. Depending on their viscosity and refinement these products have different properties ranging from black asphalt to light penetrating oil. With EPA restrictions on the use of some of these products vegetable products have gained acceptance in many areas.

Vegetable based lubricants offer significant advantages over their petroleum counter parts justifying their additional price with additional performance. For example, vegetable oils offer greater inner-strand lubricity reducing bending fatigue caused by metal-to-metal contact. Vegetable oils will also continue to creep into the wires long after they have been applied to the wire rope. Many vegetable based products are used near water reserves and the ocean because of the acceptance as environmentally friendly.

Additives:

Additives are the most important part of a preservative-lubricant. They give the lubricant its desired characteristics. Common additives in wire rope lubricants include the following:

Rust Inhibitors: Help prevent against corrosion causing red rust and/or white rust. Rust inhibiting compounds may displace moisture, neutralize corrosion causing elements, or form a barrier against corrosion.

Tack (Adhesion) Additives: Allows the preservative-lubricant greater adhesion to the wire rope reducing run-off and drippage.

Extreme Pressure (EP) additives: Provides greater lubricity, by preventing metal-to-metal contact, reducing bending fatigue in working ropes and ropes under heavy load.

Polymers: Adhere to the metal on a wire rope preventing corrosion by filling the pits in the metal surface. Also provide EP characteristics.

Thickening Agents & Antioxidants: Prevent the viscosity of the preservative lubricant from thinning at elevated temperatures. This is important during the manufacturing of the wire rope.

Other characteristics:

Color: The preservative lubricant should allow visual inspection when it is applied to the wire rope so the rope may be inspected without removing it’s coating, saving time and money.

Sheening: The preservative-lubricant should not form a sheen on the water as stipulated in coast guard regulations, if the crane is being operated around water ways, bays, wetlands, or drinking supplies.

Environment Compatibility: Some areas of the country have concerns with disposing of wire rope coated with petroleum based products or drippage of a preservative-lubricant during application. Check with the preservative-lubricant manufacturer for environmental compatibility.

Self-Healing Skin: A quality of some preservative lubricants is that it will form a self-healing skin over the wire rope. This skin will self heal when nicked or scratched because of a reservoir it keeps in the wire rope. A self-healing skin helps prevent cracking and flaking of the lubricant. The skin will also prevent abrasive dust or dirt from accumulating in the wires.

Additives increase the performance of the preservative-lubricant reducing the frequency of application. When selecting a preservative-lubricant be sure to inquire about the additives and their function and not to be misled by a low cost lubricant, which ends up, being "salad-dressing" and needs to be replaced the following month.

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Camesa, Inc · 1615 Spur 529 · P.O. Box 1048 · Rosenberg, Texas 77471 Phone: (281) 342-4494 · Fax: (281) 342-0531