The determination of the force distribution in the carrying cable of a cableway

Abstract

The analysis of the forces in the uniform carrying cable of a cableway, used for conveying ore to an enrichment plant, is described. For the purpose of the analysis the problem is considered as a static equilibruim problem. The elasticity of the cable, its motion relative to the pylon supports after loading with carts, the weights of the loaded ore carts, and the forces exerted by the towing rope are taken into consideration. Since the cable is pulled taut the influence of bending moments is negligible and consequently the cable may be considered as a perfectly flexible cable that may be modelled by discrete modelling. In particular, use is made of a point mass model. The analysis gives the maximum tensile force and the corresponding position of this force for different representative positions of the loaded carts along the carrying cable. This enables the computation of safety factors for different types of cables.