Thermal properties of Fiber ropes

There is a trend within the oil and gas market to shift from steel wire ropes to fiber ropes for lifting, hoisting and mooring applications. The cost of fiber ropes is about 2-3 times that of steel wire ropes, but the natural buoyancy of fiber ropes reduces the overall weight resulting in smaller cranes and thereby reduces the overall costs. For heave compensation, a rope is typically of 3-4000 meters long, such that one rope costs in the order of 7.5 million dollars. The current practice on when to discard a fiber rope is through visual inspections done manually with large safety factors. This means that the rope is discarded before it is necessary, increasing the overall life-cycle costs. The offshore industry wants a better monitoring system to understand when the fiber rope must be replaced.