Here's what happens when a wire breaks under tensile load exceeding its strength. It's typically recognized by the "cup and cone" appearance at the point of failure. The necking down of the wire at the point of failure to form the cup and cone indicates failure has occurred while the wire retained its ductility.

This is a wire with a distinct fatigue break. It's recognized by the square end perpendicular to the wire. This break was produced by a torsion machine that's used to measure the ductility. This break is similar to wire failures in the field caused by fatigue.

A wire rope that has been subjected to repeated bending over sheaves under normal loads. This results in fatigue breaks in individual wires -- these breaks are square and usually in the crown of the strands.

An example of fatigue failure of a wire rope subjected to heavy loads over small sheaves. The breaks in the valleys of the strands are caused by "strand nicking." There may be crown breaks, too.

Here you see a single strand removed from a wire rope subjected to "strand nicking." This condition is a result of adjacent strands rubbing against one another. While this is normal in a rope's operation, the nicking can be accentuated by high loads, small sheaves or loss of core support. The ultimate result will be individual wire breaks in the valleys of the strands.

A "birdcage" is caused by sudden release of tension and the resulting rebound of rope. These strands and wires will not be returned to their original positions. The rope should be replaced immediately.

A typical failure of a rotary drill line with a poor cutoff practice. These wires have been subjected to continued peening, causing fatigue type failures. A predetermined, regularly scheduled cutoff practice can help eliminate this type of problem.

This is a wire rope with a high strand -- a condition in which one or more strands are worn before adjoining strands. This is caused by improper socketing or seizing, kinks or dog-legs. It recurs every sixth strand in a 6 strand rope.

A kinked wire rope is shown here. It's caused by pulling down a loop in a slack line during handling, installation or operation. Note the distortion of the strands and individual wires. This rope must be replaced.

Here's a wire rope that has jumped a sheave. The rope "curled"as it went over the edge of the sheave. When you study the wires, you'll see two types of breaks here: tensile "cup and cone" breaks and shear breaks that appear to have been cut on an angle.

Drum crushing is caused by small drums, high loads and multiple winding conditions.