Synthetic Web Sling Damage: Break Tests on Heat, UV, Cuts, Knots, and Weld Splatter

Intro: Breaking Damaged Synthetic Web Slings

– Woo.

– Yeah, it took it direct hit.

– Oh, no. Where’s the camera?

– What would happen if I were to use this for a lift? Well, today I’m gonna show you.

My name is Ben, and this is the Lifting & Rigging Channel, and I am joined by Terry Driscoll. We’re going to be playing around on the test bed again today. So Terry, tell me, what are we doing?

– I heard in the past from some of our previous videos, people like seeing us break stuff. So that’s exactly what we’re gonna do today.

We’ve got a table in front of us just loaded up with flat web slings. A lot of these have been inspected in the field and removed from service. That might be because of heat damage, welding splatter, UV issues, torn stitching, crushing, abrasion, cuts, you name it.

What Are Common Mistakes When Rigging With Synthetic Web Slings?

– What are some common mistakes that you see people make when they’re rigging with web slings?

– Well, I think a lot of the time, people just need to get the job done, right? Men and women are out there, and they’re like, “This is what we have to work with.” I think a lot of it might have to do with education, just getting the proper training on what they should be looking for. It’s great if the safety department knows about it, but if the people on the ground don’t understand what they’re using or how they’re supposed to be looking for damage on synthetic web slings, then maybe they just get confused and say, “Well, company says it’s okay, I’ve got it here. This is what I’ve gotta do my job with.”

People are trying to overextend their useful life, right? So, of course, before each use, someone should be going through that sling to make sure that it is in good working order for that particular lift. If you come across an area that has severe, heavy abrasion on it, the sling’s gotta be removed from service.

First and foremost, they should be looking for a tag. Make sure you’re storing these properly. One thing that people don’t take into consideration is if you throw a sling into the back of a truck, a pickup truck, or put it on your dashboard and just drive around in the blazing sun all summer long, UV is going to affect that sling. Take care of the slings, they’re gonna take care of you.

How Does Heat Damage Affect Synthetic Web Sling Strength?

– So what do we got here? We got a lot of, like most of this stuff we pulled from the field, right? Rigging inspectors brought this to us, they found it, someone was using it.

– Correct. Yes, sir.

– So what are some of the things that we’ve got going on here? What’s going on here?

– We know that we’ve got severe melting. So this was put up against a nice hot surface. When you start feeling, I love a hands-on visual inspection because as you’re running your hands across it, you can feel all that brittleness. I mean, just bending it back and forth, you can hear the actual individual fibers breaking.

– People don’t wanna hear us yack all day, Terry, let’s get over the test bed and start breaking some slings.

– Let’s break it.

The Test

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are putting in an EE2-902, 6,400-pound working load limit. This has severe burns and melted fibers on the sling.

About 6,400 pounds, starting our climb. 500. Here’s a thousand pounds, 2000 pounds. 3, 4, 5. Taking it up to proof. 12,8.

7,000, 8,000. Failure. 7,800 pounds, failure.

The Results

Well, what we expected, working load limit, again, 6,400 pounds. So as soon as we started pushing for proof, that’s where it failed. Apparently, you could start hearing the breaks in the fibers before ultimate, right where we had all the severe damage.

This is why inspecting your slings is so important. Hands-on visual inspection, strongly encouraged prior to each use.

How Does a Knot Affect a Synthetic Web Sling’s Strength?

– We’re also gonna show off some mistakes that some people might make, like tying a knot in their sling.

– Some people think that they might need a shorter sling, so why not tie it into a knot to shorten it up? And we’re just gonna show you today how that’s a big no-no.

The Test

What we’re gonna do is start with an EE2-902 with a 6,400-pound working load limit. But this is tied in a knot. We’re probably going to see it fail right at the knot. Traditionally, with a brand new sling, you will see it fail right below the splice.

And now we’re starting to climb. We’re gonna see that knot continually slip down. We’re gonna see friction burns on this, probably a pull-through. And we’re just now reaching a thousand pounds on this test. 2,500. I can see that knot just constantly slipping and biting into the synthetic. 3000 pounds. 4,000. Slipping, getting tighter, 5,000 pounds. 6,000 pounds.

Taking it to break. 15,000 pounds, 16. Gone.

The Results

Well, as we anticipated, it failed in the knot. And what we were looking for, or what I anticipated anyway, is the friction burns from the heat that was generated as that knot continued to seat.

Impressive cut as we can see, whenever it was pulled apart. Definitely not what you want to do out in the field.

How Do Cuts and Abrasion Affect Synthetic Web Sling Strength?

Here, we’ve got an eye that’s got all kinds of damage to it, where we’ve got broken and cut fibers. It’s probably coming in contact with an edge, or there’s severe abrasion. You can see how fuzzy everything gets after a while.

This next sling, another EE2-902, two-inch wide, two ply, 6,400-pound vertical. We had severe damage in the eye. Again, when new, these slings should fail right below the splice of a nylon sling in the body.

My prediction, of course, is gonna fail in the eye, which happens to be the strongest part of a sling. Picture it like a mini basket.

The Test

Starting our climb. About 500 pounds, 1,000 pounds. 2000, getting up to 6,400 pounds. 3, 4, 5. 6,400 pounds. Pursuing proof. 12,8. Failure.

The Results

6,400 for a working load. We had severe damage in the eye. Actual cutting on both sides of this eye. It achieved 7,300 pounds before failure, so we didn’t even get to proof load on it. And from what I’m being told from the people that are on the outside around the test bed, you could actually hear fibers tearing apart prior to working load.

Another clear indication as to why you should be inspecting your synthetic web slings. One thing this thing would not have survived is any type of a shock load. So even though it made 6,400, how long would it be able to sustain that? And if there’s any drop at all in that load or sudden shock to it, that sling would’ve definitely failed prior to working load.

How Does UV Damage Affect Synthetic Web Sling Strength?

UV is going to affect that sling. So of course, make sure that you’re storing these properly.

The Test

Once again, another EE2-902, 6,400-pound working load. We’re gonna start our system up now. Start our proof test. We’re at 1500 pounds and climbing. 2,000 pounds. A good sliding sleeve abrasion pad would’ve helped. We’re at 6,400 pounds.

Increasing, going up to our proof load. 12,800 pounds. 9,000, 10,000 pounds. And here we are at proof. Proof load.

Again, climbing up. Boom. Barely made it above proof.

The Results

I can’t stress enough the importance of visual hands-on inspections. The failure occurred in the splice. If we dig deeper, we’ll notice that this used to be, I’m sure, a vibrant orange color. And now of course, everything is dingy, it’s grayed out. And this is one of the important factors of avoiding the UV problems with synthetic slings.

Better way of maybe storing your slings in a cool dark place, storing it into a lockbox. Don’t store it at the back of the truck, don’t store it on your dashboard. Just don’t let it sit out on the job site alone. They may be inexpensive, but again, they’re a critical tool on the job site.

How Does Weld Splatter Affect Synthetic Web Sling Strength?

– What’s going on with this guy?

– Well, now we actually have some, some would refer to it as like a weld splatter or a slag.

– Mm-hmm.

– So you had some molten metal that actually dropped onto this synthetic sling. You can start peeling it away, but at the same time, look at all the damage that we have below it. Regardless, if you have any type of heat that’s coming in contact with a synthetic sling, if the sling is not designed for that type of a temperature like 300 degrees, the sling’s gotta be removed from service.

The Test

Now, we’re actually changing it up a bit with an EE2-903. Now, we’re going with a three-inch wide, 9,400-pound working load limit. Severe weld splatter looks like some hot metal slag that may have landed in the eyes. We anticipate it failing in the eyes based off the damage.

And we’re gonna start taking that up to 9,400 pounds for working load. There are multiple slings that you can utilize in place of a standard nylon or polyester sling in a high-heat area. Sparkeater would be recommended.

We’re at 2,500 pounds and climbing up to 94. But understanding what you’re working around and the type of rigging you have is always beneficial. Make sure you match the rigging with the job.

And here we are at 9,400 pounds. Now, we’re gonna be taking that up to 18,800 for proof. At 17,000, 18,000, 19,000 pounds, We’re at 25,000 pounds. We’re hearing it snap, crackle, and pop right now. At 28,000 pounds, 29, 30,000 pounds. I can hear it in the test bed. I’m sure they hear it. That was loud. Looks like we were around 33,000 pounds.

– Yeah, took a direct hit.

– Oh no, where’s the camera?

The Results

– What we anticipated, again, a failure in the eye. This is what we were dealing with. We’re dealing with a lot of this hot slag in the eye, and it was probably one of the more impressive breaks, probably, the loudest of the day that we had.

Line of Fire: The Kinetic Energy of a Synthetic Web Sling Break

And there’s a reason why we do all of this in a controlled environment with a cage. Because if your 360° camera can’t survive it, just imagine what can happen out in the field.

Can Someone Come On-Site to Inspect Your Synthetic Web Slings?

Again, I can’t stress enough the importance of a hands-on visual inspection. If something seems wrong with the sling, please pull it outta service. You do have people that can come on site to take care of these type of rigging inspections for you. Please contact your local account manager for additional details.

What Did We Learn From Breaking Damaged Synthetic Web Slings?

– So Terry, we broke a lot of slings today. What did we learn?

– Well, we learned that 360 cameras cannot survive a direct hit. Number one. Number two, extremely critical to make sure, again, hands-on visual inspection of your synthetic slings.

Why a Damaged Sling That Hits Its WLL Is Still Dangerous

– So I know a lot of people are gonna watch this and go, well, it made it to working load limit, right? But none of these survived what they were supposed to and designed to.

– What they were designed for, exactly. So again, you do have a 5:1 design factor for a reason. And if you would’ve encountered any type of a shock load with some of these slings, they could have prematurely failed, not even made the actual working load limit.

So never rig into proof, never rig into the actual design factor of that sling. Work within the working load only. That’s why it’s called working load.

How to Properly Store Synthetic Web Slings to Prevent UV Damage

– What would be your biggest takeaway from all the different breakups that we did today?

– Lots of UV issues with items. That was kind of concerning. Seeing what were, at one time vibrant orange slings, now grayed and dulled out to see a complete failure of that sling just shortly after proof load.

– I feel like that was one of the things that I really noticed was all these slings that we pulled from service, like, they all had, like, some very specific damage that we wanted to key in on, but it wasn’t, like, that was the only thing wrong with it. And a lot of ’em, especially the UV damage, you could hear it as we started pulling it. You would get it to, you know, working load limit, and you’d already hear it starting to crack.

– You start hearing all those fibers start to break.

– Yeah.

– Another takeaway is to just properly store these slings. Make sure they’re not sitting out on a job site, as I said, sitting in the back of the truck, sitting on your dashboard. These things have gotta be put away properly just to help prevent them from getting additional damage as opposed to what they’re just seeing in day use.

– All right, well, Terry, I don’t know if we’ll get a chance to do another one of these, but it’s always fun.

– Always fun.

Why ASME B30.9 Rigging Rules and Best Practices Exist

– Hopefully, this demonstration showed you that the rules and best practices that exist alongside web slings aren’t there just to make your life more difficult. Whenever these rules are written, it isn’t just for legal reasons; it’s usually because there have been enough dangerous load failures that someone recognized that there is a need for testing and guidance.

Where to Shop for New Synthetic Web Slings and Rigging Gear

So please inspect your slings, please follow best practices, and if you find those slings need to be pulled from service, you can shop for new ones at mazzellacompanies.com or contact us below, and we can make sure that you’re getting the proper rigging for your needs.

If you found this video useful, informative, entertaining, or you just feel like being friendly, then hit that like button so we can get this information out to everyone who needs it. Subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss a video. If you have a question, drop it in the comments so we can get you an answer. Remember, safe rigging is smart rigging. My name is Ben. Stay safe out there.