Climbing ropes wear out during use, thus losing their load-bearing capacity and consequently providing ever lower safety for climbers. Since most often this wear is not uniform along the length of the rope, we decided to find out what are the differences between the forces of rupture of individual parts of one climbing rope. We made test parts through which we could insert the rope into the hydraulic machine and stretch it until it collapsed. The forces required for failure vary along the rope in accordance with the visible wear of the rope sheath, and the differences between the largest and smallest can be up to a factor of 2.
|
