Bending and Torsion of Twisted Cable Strands Accounting for the Effect of Friction

This work contains the investigation of the influence mesoscopic effects on the de formation behavior of unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cables by means of bending and torsion experiments and corresponding finite element simulations. We utilize a previously presented modeling approach using finite beam elements with quadratic shape functions accounting for frictional contact to simulate bending and torsion on UTPs. The model is adapted to UTPs with different pitch lengths and different mate rials. Comparison of experimental and simulation results show good agreement under bending for UTPs with a comparatively small pitch length as here the dominant effects are friction and geometrical restraints. For torsion, however, only the load path of the experiment can be replicated with acceptable agreement as irreversible effects occur in the experiment which cannot be captured in the simulation. The presented results show the versatile applicability of the approach to technically relevant structures.