Design consideration for Winch

Abstract

Over the years, higher loading requirements require increasing thickness of the winch drum to withstand the higher compressive stress. Presently, the design codes for calculating the required thickness are conservative; assuming uniform tension on the rope has resulted in over design in the winch thickness. The present work undertakes experimental determination of stress relaxation on the rope and to compute the stress exerted onto the drum so as to estimate the required thickness of the winch drum. The stress on the drum was caused by the tension of the loaded rope under pulling or braking load condition. From our experimental results, the tension of the loaded rope decreases from the loaded end to the wraps of rope on the drum. The thickness of the winch drum computed using the experimental results is lower than those required by the current design codes, resulting in a more economical design of the winch.