Eurosatory 2018: Marlow highlighting advanced ropes.

Marlow’s superior range of British made technically better ropes provide engineering solutions for all towing, winching and recovery operations across the commercial support and combat vehicle sectors. This vehicle recovery range is on display at this year’s Eurosatory Exhibition in June at Stand C100, Hall 5b.

Marlow's booth at Eurosatory 2018

Wire rope replacement is becoming increasingly important in many vehicle applications due to the significant benefits gained from modern synthetic ropes, offering significant strength, handling and safety improvements over traditional wire products.

Why Choose Synthetic Fibre (HMPE) over Wire Rope?
1. Synthetic fibre ropes are 8 times lighter than steel wire for a given strength
2. Synthetic fibre ropes are 35% stronger than wire for a given diameter
3. There are no hazardous wire splinters in synthetic fibre ropes
4. There is no yield point with synthetic fibre rope
5. Synthetic fibres float
6. There is no strength loss when synthetic fibre ropes overlap on winch drums
7. There is no kinking with synthetic fibre ropes
8. There is no recoil with synthetic fibre ropes.

Historically wire ropes have been used for many applications requiring strength members. However, there are many drawbacks to using wire rope, some of which are highlighted above. Replacing ropes made from steel wire with those made from high performance fibres holds many advantages and none more so than in safety and performance.

At approximately 60% of its breaking load, steel wire reaches its yield point, beyond this point steel wire becomes permanently and irrevocably deformed. Not only does any stretch not recover, but the wire becomes stiffer and brittle and must be retired immediately.

An important feature of synthetic fibre (HMPE) rope is that unlike steel wire, HMPE does not have a yield point. Winch lines (taken to just before the point of break) will not be damaged and there will be no change in the strength to stretch characteristics of the rope.

In many applications this has been a critical factor in the calculation of safe working loads, as shown in the example below.

Marlow Ropes are a UK rope manufacturer with a heritage dating back to 1807. The globally recognised brand is known worldwide for the quality, performance and innovation of its technically advanced rope products using exotic fibres which are sold into the defence, vehicle, safety and access, industrial and leisure marine industries.