Should You Retire Dropped Climbing Gear?

so what happens if I accidentally drop a

quick draw

Rock so there is this theory that if I

get

unlucky a micro crack might form inside

the Carabiner that would be invisible to

outside

inspection and with repeat at

loading this micro crack could grow and

eventually

however there has been many debates

whether this micr fracture theory is

correct or not so to settle the matter I

visited three different companies for

this video I got access to a very

Advanced testing equipment even looked

inside the carabiners and had a

conversation with metallics engineer

from mamut that's the lowest one we had

so far so maybe it will get interesting

maybe it will get interesting he said

and the results

kind of surprised us so enjoy so step

number one we need to make carabiners

fall I was considering to go to some

building but this way we can control the

height and I get to play with my

impulsive purchase so a bit of 3D

modeling and electronics and we got this

oppa totally legal tum I wonder how it's

going to it's going to be good 3 2

one the sound step one of this

experiment is to clean the lab it has to

be hard surface you know keyboard

Warriors would complain less or

differently oh maybe I should go a bit

genter and that's 40 m holy [ __ ] it's

far up I would recommend everybody to go

a bit away okay ready three two one

go and that was disappointing I was

expecting that the quick dra will fall

like a dark and we'll have a nice smack

but instead it was tumbling like a leaf

more like a parachute not a dart so the

old genius me thought that maybe the

wind from the propellers pushes on the

sling slightly and then the Quick Draw

starts so change of plans no slings

slings don't

work 50 m 50 m that's crazy high 3 2

1

oo that was close and here is the first

thing I learned most small objects are

not aerodynamically stable so they will

not fall like a rock or a darkart wood

here is me dropping a quick drop it

immediately flips to the

side another attempt is to hang it off

long string and see if that

helps it's kind of

funny it actually has a lot of

lift

[Music]

okay yeah it did have a bit of Chip here

that I don't know how much that would be

a problem so at this point it was clear

that we needed more weight but it will

not be very consistent no it won't I

give up gave up on consistency on this

Experiment three two one holy

moly okay now it was um big bang wow you

want to see something funny how did that

happen all of them were connected to

this Loop now after the fall this

Carabiner was here it managed to unhook

from this link and hook to this one and

become like that that's crazy it's like

some magician trick okay so we dropped

from 100 m

height and it does not look satisfyingly

bad so maybe

we should just uh why are you guys going

[Music]

away now it looks significantly

worse woo that's nice oo

[Music]

ah oh [ __ ] one is a little bit bent no

you can't resell

it actually the bent one still works

fine you want this leave me a comment

and you have a chance to win a brand new

Carabiner actually never climbed on it

just one day use so we have a set of

carabiners that were dropped from 80 M

on a concrete floor then we have a set

of carabiners that we abused quite a lot

and then we have a set that I went uh

bit crazy with now for part two I am in

a very unusual Place hi I'm andus and we

are at lava 7 we are company

manufacturing shock absorber and

suspension testing diagnosis and service

equipment so nothing related to climbing

we have people related with climbing in

the company I myself also do some

bouldering okay Vlad will say that I'm

not doing anything but sometimes he's

visiting the gym now to test the fury

that with repeated loading the micro

crack could grow inside the Carabiner I

needed to find a way how to do thousands

of cycles of realistic loading

unfortunately most tensile testing

machines pull their things very slowly

and then they release very slowly and

that's not what happens in real life

however luckily for me these guys had a

different

machine wait what what yeah it can kill

people easily who he he or the

the operator yeah this is our latest

machine latest greatest inside we have

uh two of these linear Motors this is a

permanent magnet synchronous motor which

means that the moving part is the coils

not the magnets and we have the forcer

which is the moving part and it has the

coils inside and then you have a static

magnetic field from the magnets and a

controllable magnetic field from the

coil and those kind of push against each

other and that trans into motion and

translated to human language this

machine can move incredibly fast with

super high Precision for example we can

record track data from real rally track

and later play it back on this machine

so now this thing is kind of mimicking

entire track

yes something scary like 6 m/ second or

something so something scary something

scary you really like these things yep

two cycles you know high compression low

rebound should I move away from the

machine what's the worst that can happen

is this imagine a bullet yeah imagine a

bullet so this can shoot out so like you

need ah so straight into me basically

yeah well we can well it should I

understood I understood

even the floor is vibrating a little bit

I can find you a certain frequency where

this thing is just jumping around and

then you'll feel everything off so

that's how you are getting entertained

basically at work yes and no but you can

use that as a Midi player you know if

you just play the right uh the right

notes what was that 100 cycles that was

100 Cycles just one beep what is this

red thing on the shock absorber

expansion you have oil here and some oil

here it's also leaking but when the

Piston Rod is going inside here you can

see how the Piston here is moving okay

when I'm moving here out gas which is

here is compressing piston

up I thought that once you compress it

will want to push it back against your

compression but it wasn't not really and

many people don't understand actually

how shock absorber is working they think

that we are compressing something here

or something like that no we are just

moving oils between the chambers that's

it but then how does it come back you

have a spring every shock absorber you

have a spring here and it pushes the rod

out okay so basically this just slows

down the spring this yeah this slows

down the spring B face ah here we go we

learned something so this is our

plan now in the past we did record the

forces of the hardest climbing Falls

which peaked to about 4 and 1/2 k to the

Carabiner we scaled that up a little bit

removed unnecessary high frequency data

and this is the load curve that we

wanted to mimic for at least 5,000

Cycles let's try to replicate the data

that you sent me from an actual fall why

it's crazy how much it's

flexing um yes you can actually see the

gate rubbing against that Notch which is

quite interesting normally when you when

you climb and you take a fall you don't

think of uh something like that

happening okay so now we're going to

take the carabiners that we abused a lot

this one is even bent I'm actually

curious if it's going to straighten from

these loads or no what's your guess it

might well let's fix

it 5,000 Cycles

done it's still bent is it yeah yeah

it's still bent now before we break test

these carabiners I wanted to visit one

more interesting place

oh okay today I'm in another place which

is very interesting and we have a lot of

stuff here part of their business is

industrial high quality 3D printing both

in Plastics and in metal which is really

impressive to see and this is like

welding 3D welding it's high accurate 3D

welding yeah with laser so you weld

humanoids we can this all parts are 3D

printing so we have skull which is our

3D printing of course as anatomical

model is this like the real size of the

skull it looks kind of small yeah it's

real size so we have cranial implant

orbital floor implant facial implant

here and the big temperament B joint

implant Jesus this is so complicated who

can design these implants we we have

special software this is a 3D mouse that

I can

feel the thing you can feel yes okay

while nerd in me was really entertained

the real reason I came to Smart Factory

was this machine so many of you worried

that there might be a micro crack inside

of the Carabiner that we cannot see so

now we're going to try to see yes

computerized tomography we can scan

whatever parts we want it may be a

plastic parts it may be a metal part we

can observe what is inside that they

have cracks voids or something like that

so I was thinking maybe to compare the

most abused one and the brand new one

and see if there there is any difference

inside mhhm if there is we continue if

there isn't then Case Closed okay we

will

see it will turn 360° in half an hour

1,81 photo these images will be

reconstructed and we will get 3D Volume

so this is our Carabiner and now you can

see layer by layer of it as you can see

you can go slice by slice slice is 0.03

mm so 30 microns if there would be a

crack you could definitely see something

inside of it yeah I just ran through

through whole part but I have notic him

so it's a uniformly filled inside yeah

good news that uh we cannot see any

imperfections inside the Carabiner so we

scanned the most abused one and then

we're going to compare it to the brand

new one more results bam here bam we can

see that the damage part is uh bent yeah

it is bent yeah so what is this this is

like a difference yeah this is deviation

oh the gate is also very bent in the

middle it's bent where the hit was

actually in this spot yeah and nose is

also bent also if this will not show any

difference in the final breaking

strength

then now for the last part I wanted my

samples to be tested exactly as it's

defined in the standard and since I was

passing ing by Switzerland I couldn't

miss an opportunity to visit my friends

at mamut and meet their metallics expert

I brought some gifts for you as always I

have all kinds of different samples this

one is my favorite the question would

you whip on

this seeing the bent here I would not

it's a little bit bent okay you would

you wouldn't whip on this no no this is

not

bent no this one looks okay but you can

see it I yeah it fail from very high or

something or quite a few

times and the spring the spring of the

gate also feels quite loose I know you

did something special to it it's not

like just normal use so I brought a lot

of samples some were brand new as a

control group then a group that we

dropped from 100 m then one group that

we had a lot of fun with and the final

group where we went really really crazy

let's see if mammut Carabiner which is

rated for 21 kons is going to withstand

21 kons if it's brand new it will 100%

100% now there's going to be a game of

not blinking when it explodes

yeah Jesus Christ that was 22 K wow okay

now it's a new Carabiner or Carabiner

Carabiner Carabiner which we load loed

for 1,000 Cycles do you think that

affects the strength like this constant

deformation do you think that does

something to the carabin or it's

designed to to flex we don't design it

specifically to deform in a specific way

or in a specific amount but on those

loads like below 10 Kon there is just

such margin that it's staying in the uh

elastic deformation of the aluminum so

we're safe as long as you don't go to

the plastic deformation now this is

actually very interesting

every metal be it a carabiner or a

spring can flex and this is called

elastic elongation however if we apply

more

Force we will

permanently deform it and this is

already called plastic deformation and I

got curious to find out where is this

plastic limit for the carabiners so stay

till the end of this video because there

we will go a little bit near

all right so we broke all the new

carabiners and it was clear that such

cyclic loading does nothing to the

carabiners at least not to the brand new

ones all of them broke above their

rate so next a set that we dropped from

100 m these mostly had just light

scratches looked similar to what you

might see on older carabiners only one

had a little missing piece and this has

a bit of

yeah 23.2 K yeah

22.3 23 23 so basically dropping from

100 m makes the Carabiner slightly

stronger good no we cannot say that yet

but so we broke all the samples and

again all of them broke above their

rating and ironically some samples were

even stronger compared to brand new for

now we only have two breaking points

here or there if one had something like

this or be deeper exactly here or

somehow there that would have more

impact on ah so you say that there are

parts of Carabiner that are more

susceptible to breaking and if you have

a Nick in those parts it's more

problematic yes we break either here or

here yeah so if I would have have a Nick

in that area or close to the nose that

would be more problematic yes so now we

are looking into situation like this

would you whip on this I would be scared

to climb on this one this one has much

deeper cuts and here as well a lot of

deep Cuts yeah now this group of

carabiners looked really bad personally

I wouldn't be comfortable using

carabiners that look like this

very abused Carabiner yes

without extra

load no

way okay that's the lowest one we had so

far so maybe it will get interesting

maybe it will get interesting and it

didn't even though they were breaking at

slightly lower forces it was still above

their rating except one sample that was

very

close not very interesting

but actually very nice to know that even

after that abuse and that many cycles

it's still fine and um Moment of Truth

the last sample it's bent it's heavily

scratched and nicked missing parts of it

the gate is also looking

sideways loaded 5,000

times he said he would not whip on this

yeah this is the most abused

Carabiner let's see that's very

interesting now let's

go 3 kons 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 okay super

good enough

16

17 18 19

20 no way 21

22 look look it keeps

going it was the

best 22.5 yeah it was one of the best

there's only one that's bad how is this

possible so we broke a lot of carabiners

and I think we kind of reduced the sales

of

carabiners moving on from now on overall

we can say that this abuse you did was

not not really enough to really cause a

a safety problem in terms of breaking

strength but then you really have to

look into other problems on your

Carabiner if you look at this it's a bit

sharp everywhere that could definitely

damage the Rope so if you do this you

don't need to panic simply inspect it

and if your Carabiner doesn't look like

minded you should have enough safety

margin okay maybe a little note from the

future editor me what we showed is that

properly loaded carabiners are

incredibly reliable however there are

still many ways how they can fail for

example here is Daniel Woods snapping a

quick

drop so if you're new to climbing I

highly recommend to watch my blay Master

Class video on carabiners so you would

learn how they can fail so they would

not fail on you now before we go to the

bonus part of this video a couple of

thank yous first of of all thank you to

mammut they've been sponsoring my

channel for a while now which I

appreciate a lot but more importantly

it's always super interesting to visit

them to learn from them and then share

with you yay thank you and also my

visits to laba 7 and smart Factory was

super cool wow that's crazy that's

actually looks really bad I I wonder if

my vertebras are going to look like that

after so much editing so if you want to

learn more what we do links are in the

description and now bonus time now we

mentioned that such flexing for the

Carabiner was not an issue because it

was staying in the elastic deformation

limits however I was still curious to

find out what is the force that you can

pull on the Carabiner before you

permanently deform it so the plan was to

pull the carabiners to different forces

and observe the elongation so now we

pulled to 9 kons and then we relaxed

down and it came back to exactly what it

was before yeah so now we're going to

try to pull to 10 and see to 11 to 12

until we find when it starts deforming

yeah so we incrementally loaded the

carabiners to higher and higher loads

and here are the observations at around

half of the carabiner's rating we can

already see a very slight permanent

deformation but it's only about 50

microm which is not something you're

going to notice however that changes is

quick with higher forces at 70% of the

rating the formation is already about

half a millimeter which is significant

and pulling to even higher forces

Carabiner becomes very plastic mm

already it's elongated for 9 something

mm almost for a full CM before

breaking maybe like

this yeah this one is like full CM

longer this type of Carabiner as long as

you stay below 10 Kon it would always go

back to the same shape you would have no

problem so of course I got curious what

happens if you repeatedly load above 10

K yeah now we're going to pull on the

Carabiner up to 15 K go back close to

zero 15 again back to zero for yeah a

while so after the first pull the

carabiner had almost half a MM of

permanent deformation and then repeated

pulls we're slightly growing that but

less and less on every extra pull

however this is the behavior on the

relaxed state of the Carabiner when it's

not under load anymore if we look at the

top of the chart where we can see

elongation under load it is much more

interesting for the first Cycles

elongation keeps growing as well however

later it starts shrinking and this is

due to work hardening Where Metal

becomes stronger and harder but less

ductile now in theory work hardening

could lead to stress cracking and

compromised strength so to test this we

pull this Carabiner till failure while

normal elongation curve of the Carabiner

would look like this after the hardening

Cycles there was a new elastic limit and

it took more Force to deform the

Carabiner further however that had no

effect on the final breaking

strength now of course in real life

climbing situations we would never reach

those forces or that many cycles so it's

really nice to know that there is such a

huge safety margin but in case you're

rigging something where High forces are

possible then keep in mind that our

investigation just scratched the surface

also 50% of elastic limit or yield limit

that we found is for this Carabiner if

we would change the shape of it or maybe

how the metal was treated the numbers

could be different so I hope this

metallics world is as interesting for

you as it is for me and if you have any

questions put them put them to Dam

comments because I plan more videos on

this damn topic all right now since

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kind of disappointing

and very nice at the same

time it's disappointing that we couldn't

show uh real damage on the car Miner

yeah but it's good and reassuring

knowing that okay we have margin there

is no big like

Bo it's just lots of broken stuff and

nothing enjoy climbing