Apparatus for swaging a ferrule onto wire rope

Metal deforming – By tool-couple embodying nonplanar tool-face – Similar tool-faces

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29517, B21D 3904

Patent

active

058160949

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This application is a 371 of PCT/GB94/02025, filed Sep. 16, 1994.
The invention relates to a swaging method and apparatus and particularly, although not exclusively, to a method and apparatus of swaging a so-called flemish eye splice.
Flemish eye splicing is a well known means of forming a looped termination of ropes. In the "flemish eye" system, separated strands of the rope end are interwoven to form a loop. The hand splice formed thereby is a high performance joint which can usually withstand more than 40% of the ropes breaking load in tension. On wire ropes the hand splice is encapsulated by a steel tubular sleeve, or ferrule. The ferrule is compressed over a hand splice using a conventional press. The purpose of the ferrule is to achieve a further improvement in the performance of the splice, prevent unravelling of the splice and to prevent snagging of the hand splice as the wire rope is moved and handled.
A conventional swaging operation is illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B. In FIG. 1A a cylindrical ferrule 1 is shown positioned between two conventional swage blocks 2, 3. Strands of a wire rope 4 are shown as passing through the ferrule 1.
In order to compress the ferrule 1 onto the wire rope 4 the swaging blocks 2, 3 must have a cavity formed within them which is of a lesser diameter than that of the ferrule 1.
Referring now to FIG. 1B, it can be seen that as the swage block 3 is moved down towards the swage block 2, the ferrule 1 is pushed into an oval shape. To provide an effective encapsulation, it is necessary that the finished swaged joint is compressed evenly in all directions. In other words, the preferred finished shape of the compressed ferrule should be cylindrical. In order to achieve this, once the ferrule has been pressed oval, as in FIG. 1B, the ferrule and rope must be rotated by 90 degrees, so that the press is now bearing down directly across the area of ovality. However, this second pressing will cause the ferrule to go oval once again, with a requirement for further removal, turning of the ferrule, and recompression.
With some of the larger sizes of conventional ferrules multiple compressions may be required before a satisfactory encapsulation is achieved. It is also often necessary to perform the operation in two stages by changing the size of the swage blocks between compressions.
It can therefore be seen that the above process is very time consuming as it is extremely labour intensive. There is also substantial extra wear and tear of the press.
The above difficulties arise because of the fact that the material of the ferrule is pushed outwards, between the two swage blocks 2, 3 causing ovality.
As a consequence of the need to carry out several different stages of pressing, the material of the ferrule 1 tends to work harden and become brittle. Furthermore, if short cuts are taken by the press operator, and swaging is attempted in fewer steps than are actually required then the edges of the swage block cavities will tend to dig into the ferrule and cause the formation of flash. At the points on the ferrule on which this flash is formed, the ferrule will be weaker. In order to reduce the chances of flash formation, the edges of the cavities formed in the swage blocks are rounded off. However, this rounding off is only a partial solution to the problem.
There is therefore a long felt need in the industry for a quick and convenient means of encapsulating ropes in a quick and efficient flash-free manner.
According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided swaging apparatus comprising a swage block, the swage block having an elongate cavity defined therein, the cavity having at least first and second adjoining regions, the first region having a substantially arcuate transverse cross-section and the second region having a non-arcuate transverse cross-section.
Preferably, the cross-section of the second region is substantially constant throughout.
Preferably, the cross-section of the first region tapers from a substantially semi-circular cross-section of a first radius down to

REFERENCES:
patent: Re24604 (1959-02-01), Reider
patent: 2346412 (1944-04-01), Bratz
patent: 2947297 (1960-08-01), Demler

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