Statically indeterminate contacts in axially loaded wire strand

This paper is concerned with the analysis of simple wire strands made from one layer of circular wires helically wrapped around a circular straight core wire. The undeformed configuration is the special case in which each of the surrounding helical wires touches its two adjacent neighbouring helical wires as well as touching the core wire. This forms a statically indeterminate contact problem. A simple finite element model is developed to analyse this situation. Numerical results show that contacts can occur simultaneously at all possible contact points when the strand is subjected to extension with both ends fixed against rotation.