We have another installment from the technical department today, this one from the archives of wire rope knowledge otherwise known as our Engineering FAQ’s.

Here at LoosCo.com we’ll get requests for torque balanced, low spin, or no spin wire ropes, usually followed by the question: What is a torque balanced wire rope?

It has to do the spin characteristics designed into the rope, and is influenced by the direction of the lay at both the strand and finished rope levels. I’ll let the experts take it from here:

Torque is the twisting force that wire rope or aircraft cable exerts when tensioned. Each strand member contributes to the twisting force based on its size and lay. The number of strands and their direction of lay are key to a rope's composite torque characteristic. When the Left Hand and Right Hand forces are (approximately) equal, the rope is said to be "torque balanced". 

For example: Loos offers mooring cable (what we also refer to as Oceanographic cable), that is a right hand lay 3x19 wire rope designed to be torque balanced. A 3x19 right hand lay wire rope has three strands laid in a Right Hand direction, while each strand is a Left Hand lay. The torque (twist force) of the Left Hand and Right Hand elements counteracts each other.  The wire rope is therefore balanced and resists spin.

If you have any additional questions about this or any other aircraft cable related topics, contact a product manager and we’ll be happy to help. For those of you who like to go it alone, you can search our wealth of wire, wire rope, aircraft cable and cable assembly product information on our website, LoosCo.com. See you there!