Testing Slings With & Without CornerMax® Sling Protection

Intro

– Today we’re going to show you how this can prevent this. Let’s break some slings. My name is Ben and this is the Lifting and Rigging channel. I’m here with Terry Driscoll, AWRF Board Member and Regional Sales Manager at Mazzella. And today we’re going to show you what can happen to your slings if you’re not using sling protection or edge protection. So Terry, my first question, what is edge protection?

What are the different types of lifting sling protection?

– Well, edge protection I would say is more commonly known as a buffer sleeve or some form of protection to help the sling prevent coming in contact with the load and damaging the sling itself.

– So is this considered edge protection or is this something different?

– Well, this would actually be cut protection. So there is three different tiers that I would range things in from good, better, and best. And we have a good product like a standard Velcro or sliding nylon sleeve, which would be great for just abrasion protection. You have better protection when you get into a syn-arm style sleeve. And again, it’s also listed as an abrasion style sleeve. It’s got extra cover max on the outside. It’s got a Kevlar felt in the center. But even though you hear the word Kevlar, it is not cut protection. There’s a couple items that are on the market today and CornerMax Sleeve would be considered a cut protection item. It’s actually rated for 25,000 pounds per usable inch of sling width.

Difference between abrasion protection and cut protection?

– So what is the difference between cut protection and abrasion protection?

– Well, again, abrasion would be specifically for protecting from some sort of a rounded type edge that you’re dealing with. Maybe you’re going to be lifting up some sort of stone. There are other abrasion protections you can use to help, but it would prevent a sling from getting additional damage, maybe some sort of rough edges that it’ll come in contact with, compared to cut protection where you can actually use it on a 90 degree edge.

When do you need synthetic sling protection?

– So when do you need to use synthetic sling protection?

– I was actually told about 20 years ago from Mike Parnell with ITI that if you’re going out to a job site and you’re utilizing a standard nylon or polyester or flat web sling or round sling, you should have your sling in one hand and have that sling protection in the other. And the reason for that is most people are looking at those slings as a consumable item, but really you have to look at it as part of that lift. Every lift should be looked at it like a critical lift and you want to make sure you’re taking care of all of that rigging material.

What types of lifting sling cut protection are there?

– So today we’re going to be talking a lot about the CornerMax Sleeve, but what other types of cut protection are there?

– We do have the CornerMax Pad, which is perfect to be utilized on any type of 90 degree angle. You can see it actually prevents the load from coming in contact with the sling and vice versa, utilize Velcro to connect it onto the sling so it’ll stay in place. And it is also tagged and rated for 25,000 pounds per usable inch of sling width. Another form of cut protection is the LiftGuard, which is also rated cut protection. And as you can see, it’s got magnets on it so you can stick it on to a load and help protect the slings.

What is the CornerMax® Sleeve?

– Today we’re going to be putting this in the test bed to see how it can help protect your sling. So do you want to tell me a little bit about the CornerMax Sleeve?

– The CornerMax Sleeve, if we want to get technical with it, it’s made out of an HMPE fiber or a high modulus polyethylene. Something that I had to wait till later in the day to say that because it’s a mouthful, but it’s actually because of the tight weave that it has to help make it a little bit more of a cut protection type sleeve. At the same time we mentioned the CornerMax Pad, how it’s great for that 90 degree type angle. This of course, whatever the geometry can fold around that. So it actually gives you a lot more flexibility out in the field.

What applications is the CornerMax® Sleeve used for?

– So what are some of the applications that you might want to use this with?

– You can utilize it for any type of sharp objects. Metal, if you have I-beams that you’re going to be lifting up, they actually utilize this on steel coils as well whenever they’re lifting coils out of the river dock. Anytime you want to protect that sling from any potential cutting hazard.

Modifying a proof-test bed to show edge hazards

– All right, so I know that you modified a test bed to kind of really display how edge protection can help protect your sling. So let’s go over to the test bed, you can tell us a little bit about it.

– Sounds great.

– All right, so we’re in the test bed. This is off by the way, right?

– Yes sir. Locked out, tagged out.

– Cool. so what have you done with this test bed to modify it?

– If you look at the trolley that we have here, we actually just added an edge to the trolley on the backside as you can see. And it’s giving us that 90 degree look that you would most commonly see out in the field. And this of course, we’re just trying to simulate what they might be seeing in real time.

– So, this isn’t sharp, this is like a table. But this is considered a sharp edge, correct?

– Well, correct. And in the ASME B30.9 Standards, they actually remove the word sharp, so an edge is an edge is an edge. If I actually rested my arm on this edge and slipped, most likely I’m going to damage myself, my arm. We’re looking at the sling in the exact same type of way.

– So what are we going to do? We’re going to wrap the sling around this and we’re going to pull it until it breaks, right?

– Yes sir, we’re going to put it in a basket configuration around the edge and the first demonstration is going to be without any type of protection.

Can the CornerMax® Sleeve only be used with SlingMax® slings?

– So this CornerMax Sleeve is from SlingMax. So does it only work with SlingMax slings?

– Good question. The answer to that is no. We are trying to encourage people that may encounter any type of an edge in the field where they need cut protection to utilize this product on flat web slings, polyester roundslings, and of course the high-performance Twin-Path or single-path slings.

– Cool. And what are we breaking today?

– Today we’re going to be breaking some two inch wide, two-ply, eight foot, nylon web slings.

Can the CornerMax® Sleeve be used with chain or wire rope?

– Can it be used for chain sling, wire rope sling, or only synthetics?

– Best practice is to avoid utilizing with any type of wire, rope, or chain because it’s so specific, you’re not going to get that cut protection at 25,000 pounds per usable inch of the sling width itself. Chain of course, and wire rope is going to have that defined point to it, so it would just absolutely crush it.

What is the inspection criteria for CornerMax® Sleeve?

– So before we use this, you know, if you’re going to use this in an everyday application, is there any sort of inspection criteria that you need to look at before you put this on your sling?

– Great question. I would actually look at this like you would any other synthetic sling on the job site. So you want to go through the actual cut protection to see if you have any type of tears, holes, punctures. If you have fraying at the edges, that’s something you should also take into consideration. If you have any type of damage with it, definitely remove it from service, cut it up, destroy it. You want to make sure it’s not sitting out there for someone to just take home with them.

What are some best practices for using sling protection?

– Are there any best practices for use when you’re using sling protection?

– Make sure you have it in connection or adhering to the entire surface that is to be protected at all times. You don’t want to have it just right on the edge of the edge without having full protection on the synthetic sling that’s about to be used.

– Cool, so anything else we need to know before we do a break test?

– Yeah, let’s probably get out of the test bed and get down to business.

Pulling a sling to WLL on an edge with no cut protection

– Okay, so Terry, where are we right now and what are we about to see?

– We’re actually in our test booth right now and what we’re going to do is we’re going to work with Bob Carr. Bob is going to operate this 200,000 pound proof test bed and we’re going to take our EE2-902 8 foot nylon sling in the basket configuration, take it up to working load limit and hold it for about 10 to 20 seconds, drop it back down again so that we can further inspect that sling.

– Okay. And what’s the working load limit?

– Bob?

– 12400.

– Well let’s get out of here and let Bob do his thing and we’ll see what happens.

– Sounds great.

– All right, Terry, so we just pulled this to working load, held it there for 10 seconds. So what are we looking at now?

– Well, after we pull the sling out, of course you could already see it has that form around that carriage that we were talking about. But simply stated, you can easily see that now we have got damage on the outside section of that nylon sling simply because it was resting on that edge at 12,400 pounds.

– So you could pull this to 12,400 pounds, no problem. But if you have it on an edge, you’re going to have-

– As you can see, you’re going to experience some issues here. Now the other thing to take into consideration, what happens if you happen to have a shock load while you’re doing that lift? Is it just going to leave this same type of indentation or is it going to cut right through it like a knife?

– Right, and this is removal criteria right here.

– This is removal criteria ’cause we already have a defined area where we have cut into it, we’ve got heavy abrasion from the elongation of the nylon sling as well as the defined edge that’s going through it, cutting the sling.

– Cool. So what are we going to do now?

Pulling a sling to failure on an edge with no cut protection

– Well actually we’re going to take this back up and break test it just to see exactly what we can record.

– Okay, let’s do it.

– So Ben, as you can see, we were expecting, this working load limit of course, was 12,400 pounds in a basket configuration. We were trying to get two times that and we were just shy. We were actually at 24,318 pounds for that break over the edge.

– I’m going to assume that’s because the sling was already damaged from the first pull, which kind of just speaks to the importance of having sling protection, right?

– Safe bet that it was probably from the previous damage that we incurred when we went up to working load limit. But at the same time now we were going up to proof, which is two times that working load limit and the sling itself just couldn’t hold up.

Pulling a sling to WLL on an edge with the CornerMax® Sleeve

– Now we’re going to put the CornerMax Sleeve on same exact sling, same exact working load limit.

– Correct, we’ll take it up to working load limit and then we’ll inspect it after that, we’ll drop it back down. Then we’ll set the sling up in the exact same configuration and then we’ll go to ultimate. We’re going to go hopefully get to five times.

– All right Terry, so we just pulled this to working load with the sleeve on, so what are we looking at?

– Well again, we went to 12,400 pounds in that basket configuration. What you can see here of course, is that we do have some minor indentations. You throw 12,400 pounds onto something, you might get that. But when we pull out the actual pad, you can see on the sling itself. Well what do you see?

– So some minor indentations, but there’s no scuffing, there’s no cutting at all,

– Correct. No abrasion whatsoever. The sling is still intact. No damage to it.

– So even though this is kind of dented in now, ’cause we put a lot of weight on here.

– Yes sir.

– This is still usable, you can put it back onto the sling? It’s not something that you have to remove from service?

– That is correct. And this is what it’s designed for. Again, it’s that special, that tight weave that it has to it, provided that cut protection that we’re looking for, but always inspect it after use to make sure you don’t have any type of cuts, punctures, tears, et cetera.

– So basically we went from if we’re going to put the sling at working load with an edge, it’s now a one time use sling and now we can reuse this.

– As long as you don’t have any other type of issues throughout that nylon or polyester sling, that’s correct.

Pulling a sling to failure with the CornerMax® Sleeve

– Okay. So what are we going to do next? We’re going to put this back on?

– We’re going to put it back on and we’re actually going to take this up to five times.

– Now, just because you can take it up to five times…

– You should not take it to five times. We’re just curious to see exactly what kind of protection this is going to provide if we are maxing things out to five times, which is the ultimate.

– You could just do that quick, go up two times and then just pause briefly and then go up.

– It went 130 pounds over!

– Wow.

– So it exploded.

– It was a big boom.

– So what did this break at?

– Actually, it was just a bit over 62,000 pounds. And so with this particular sling in a basket configuration, a five to one design factor would be 62,000 pounds. Now let’s keep in mind the CornerMax Sleeve is designed for 25,000 pounds per usable inch of sling width. We’re using a two inch wide sling, 50,000 pounds. We of course exceeded that based off of the break, as well as the test results.

– Yeah, so we’re not advocating that just because you have sling protection on you can use your slings past their working load limit, correct?

– That is correct, sir.

– It’s just showing that you know, if you’re pulling something on an edge how important sling protection is and that really, it’s going to really protect your sling quite a bit.

– Correct and as I stated earlier, if you’re going out to a job, you have your synthetic slings in one hand have your protection in the other.

How can you learn more about CornerMax®?

– So again, that’s why sling protection is so important. Whenever you’re lifting anything with an edge. CornerMax is a great way to protect your synthetic slings and more importantly, make safe lifts. Mazzella is a SlingMax authorized manufacturer who can help you with all of your lifting and rigging needs. So contact us below. 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. Remember, safe rigging is smart rigging, my name is Ben. Stay safe out there.