Strand Construction of Wire Rope

The strand construction refers to the pattern in which the wires are placed within the strands.

Take for example this 6x19 FC wire.

The actual construction is 6x19 Filler (12/6+6F/1) fibre core. That is 6 strands each made up of 19 wires.  Each wire made up of 12 outer wires over 6 inner wires plus 6 filler wires over 1 centre wire.  The word filler relates to the strand pattern of which there are three.

Filler, Seale and Warrington.

Filler – characterised by the small spacer wires which lie in the interstices of the inner layer to help position and support the outer layer.

Seale – characterised by having equally sized wires in the outer layer with the same number of uniform but smaller sized wires in the inner layer.

Warrington – characterised by having one of its wire layers (usually the outer) made up of an arrangement of alternately large and small wires.

In 6x36 construction, because of the greater number of wires, combinations of the three strand patterns are used.  Wire sizes would become too large if only one of the three fundamental patterns were used.  For example, Warrington Seale is a blend of the Seale and Warrington patterns.  The outer layer has equally sized wires whilst the layer underneath has wires of alternately large and small diameter.