The acoustic evaluation of wire ropes immersed in water

Abstract This note shows that wire breaks can be detected acoustically when a wire rope is immersed in water with a transducer either attached to an end connection or remote from the rope with water acting as the carrier medium. In either case little change in transducer signal amplitude occurs. However, in propagating through water the signal duration is reduced because of the absence of shear waves. This also affects the resulting frequency spectra as frequency components below 25 kHz are greatly reduced.