The time-dependent mechanical behavior of hoisting wire ropes on offshore drilling platforms can cause repeated contact and relative sliding between the steel wire rope and the drum flange during interlayer transition. In marine service environments, seawater exposure and lubrication conditions may further influence the tribological behavior of the rope−flange contact pair, thereby affecting the load-bearing safety of the hoisting system. In this study, friction and wear tests were performed on a steel wire rope–drum flange contact pair using a custom-built test rig. The effects of cycle number, environmental condition, contact load, and friction frequency on the friction coefficient, wear scar profile, volume loss, wear coefficient, and wear morphology were systematically investigated. Wear evolution and damage mechanisms were characterized by manual strand disassembly, three-dimensional profilometry, and scanning electron microscopy. The results show that the friction coefficient increases rapidly at the initial stage, then rises gradually, and finally fluctuates around a steady state with increasing cycle number. The steady-state friction coefficient decreases with increasing contact load and friction frequency. In contrast, the wear width, wear depth, maximum cross-sectional failure area, volume loss, and wear coefficient increase with cycle number and frictional parameters. The wear severity under different environmental conditions follows the order of air > seawater > grease + seawater > grease. These findings provide a basis for understanding the degradation behavior and optimizing maintenance strategies of steel wire rope–drum flange contact pairs in offshore drilling hoisting systems.

The main cable bent around the saddle of the suspension bridge is subjected to the wind, the vehicle, the bridge’s own weight and the corrosive media. The coupling of the three loads and the environments causes the friction, the corrosion, and the fatigue (tribo-corrosion-fatigue) among the wires inside the main cable. In this paper, a wire bending tribo-corrosion-fatigue test rig was designed and developed. The effect of fatigue load on the bending friction behaviors between the cable wires in ultrapure water and 3.5% NaCl solution was explored. The tribological properties and electrochemical corrosion behaviors under different fatigue loading ranges were investigated. The tribo-corrosion-fatigue interaction between the cable wires was quantitatively characterized, and the mechanism of the interaction was analyzed. The results demonstrate that the increasing fatigue load exacerbates the coupling damage of the cable wires attributed to the enhanced interaction. The findings carry theoretical importance when assessing the main cable’s deterioration and the load-bearing safety of a suspension bridge.

The effect of contact load and relative displacement on tribo-corrosion interaction of parallel steel wires of main cable in the suspension bridge was investigated in this study. A self-made tribo-corrosion test bench was employed to conduct tribo-corrosion tests of parallel steel wires in 3.5% (wt%) NaCl solution and deionized water under different contact loads and different relative displacements. The friction coefficient and wear coefficient of wires were presented. Electrochemical corrosion behavior (Tafel polarization curves, Nyquist diagram, and equivalent circuit diagram) was characterized by electrochemical analyzer. Wear morphology was observed by scanning electron microscope. Wear volume loss and corrosion‒wear interaction were quantitatively demonstrated by high-precision weighing balance. The results show that the electrochemical corrosion ability of the steel wires increases with the increase of the contact load or relative displacement. The increased contact load or relative displacement increases the volume loss of corrosion‒wear and pure wear, but decreases the wear coefficient. The wear mechanisms in 3.5% NaCl solution are adhesive wear, abrasive wear, and corrosive wear as compared to adhesive wear and abrasive wear in deionized water under different contact loads. The wear mechanisms of parallel steel wires are slightly different under different relative displacements. But the main wear mechanisms are similar to that under different contact loads. The interaction effects of corrosion and wear produced by the contact load and relative displacement are all the synergistic effects.