Experimental Investigation of Friction and Slip at the Traction Interface of Rope and Sheave

In this paper, an exclusive testing rig was built to experimentally investigate the friction and slip at elevator traction interface under different traction conditions. The effect of pre-tension of rope is also discussed which indicates that the full slip occurs earlier and is greater under smaller pre-tension force. The experimental results indicated that slipping occurs at both ends of contact arc first, and then expands to the middle region gradually until the full slip along the sheave occurs. In addition, the full slip occurs earlier under lower rope pre-tension.