A "birdcage" is caused by sudden release of tension and the resulting rebound of rope. These strands and wires will not be returned to their original positions. The rope should be replaced immediately.

  A typical failure of a rotary drill line with a poor cutoff practice. These wires have been subjected to continued peening, causing fatigue type failures. A predetermined, regularly scheduled cutoff practice can help eliminate this type of problem.

This is localized wear over an equalized sheave. The danger here is that it's invisible during the rope's operation, and that's why you need to inspect this portion of an operating rope regularly. The rope should be pulled off the sheave during inspection and bent to check for broken wires.

This is a wire rope with a high strand -- a condition in which one or more strands are worn before adjoining strands. This is caused by improper socketing or seizing, kinks or dog-legs.  It recurs every sixth strand in a 6 strand rope.

A kinked wire rope is shown here. It's caused by pulling down a loop in a slack line during handling, installation or operation. Note the distortion of the strands and individual wires. This rope must be replaced.

Here's a wire rope that has jumped a sheave. The rope "curled"as it went over the edge of the sheave. When you study the wires, you'll see two types of breaks here: tensile "cup and cone" breaks and shear breaks that appear to have been cut on an angle.

Drum crushing is caused by small drums, high loads and multiple winding conditions.