I would be interested in seeing a more shallow angle tested. It's rare to have a carabiner loaded over a complete 90 degree turn, but much more common to have only a slight bend. Basically, how much bend is "safe"?
@@HowNOT2 it would be great to see it if the carabineer was connected to a sling or dogbone (like in a cam or quickdraw) - assume that might be stronger than when connected straight into the bolt as it can see-saw more?
@@HowNOT2 Thanks so much for these tests! One thing that would be extremely helpful to test are carabiners in a choked configuration around cylindrical objects. I.e. crab clipped into alpine butterfly, rope around the object and passed through the carabiner. This is a configuration which is commonly used both in tree work (around limbs, duh :D) and in rope access around various round objects like pipes. Especially in tree work this is accepted, still there is lots of argument about whether this is safe. Some say to do it only with steel quicklinks. Others do it with steel carabiners. Or with aluminum carabiners. All locking, of course. I would assume that this depends both on the diameter of the cylindrical object and its rigidity, i.e. steel pipe vs wood. But getting some data points here would be tremendously helpful!
I feel he could easily set this up with a couple different shapes pieces of UHMW over the top the frame he was already pulling on. I want to see the degree of angle it takes to bring these break below capacity
Alarming results, but this also assumes the piece is being pulled against that 90° angle. Definitely something to be concerned about, but it seems like the real world situations are hard to represent accurately with only the 90° angle of the table.
What is the correct answer then? Is it to re- sling the gear to extend the biner? Had to think about a bit this yesterday on a deep keyhole TR anchor, 30° angle and padded. Won't do again...
@@BryanHaddon world be interesting to see if the results are different on a 30° angle. Possibly test different angles to determine at what point the drop in safety become intolerable (say sub 7 kN?)
I've put one of those small carabiners in a bench vise and broke it by pushing on it. With my bare hands. It took some bouncing, but it snapped. I don't fuck with edge loading anymore.
Thank you for all of the free resources and independent testing you do for us, you really make the community a better place! I really wish I was able to support you in a way other than hitting that sub and like button! Thanks a million!
I've placed gear/quickdraws and sometimes anchors where there was some lever loading like this (though not at a 90° angle), and luckily I always had a different sized sling or quickdraw to move it out of this position. Good to know that I was right in taking the extra time (and carrying the extra gear) to correct it every time!
Am I the only one. That when stuff goes flying and I can't find it. I automatically start patting myself down seeing if there's any new holes that shouldn't be in me.
I think the most common scenario where this happens is clipping a QuickDraw through a bolt, but there is something else (like a quick link) in the bolt, and people clip over instead of under. It would be awesome to see you test this scenario!
You're the best, Ryan, I just saw a commercial for pushing the line literally ten seconds ago and youre uploading with dizzying frequency, thank you so much for not letting your youtube people fall by the wayside, love the content, all of it, and its so exciting to see content like this from someone in the same general area as I am.
As an Arborist Ive had many situations where my crabs have been in situations like this and I've thought "its still strong enough". Thanks for showing me it probably is not! Think i have a few crabs to retire now 🙄😅
Would be interesting to see a test with carabiner attached to a hanger, clipped above and levered against a chain attached to the same hanger. Seems like a common setup for top rope anchors.
I once managed to bend a Petzl Spirit quickdraw open by placing it on top of a maillon before taking a big whipper. Although it didn’t break it was scary to hang on it. Unfortunately, it is quite common in Europe to leave a maillon in order to withdraw from a route. Usually, it’s the hardest part of the route and you don’t have time to place it belwow. I have seen people doing the exact same mistake many times.
Thx for this. In a Book I read, that breaking force can go down to 2kN. If i remember right it was "Sicherheit und Risiko in Fels und Eis" (ISBN 3-7633-6016-6) not sure if there is an english version of this. But the book is amazingly and helps a lot to learn from others (deadly) mistakes. I hope this does not sound like advertisement :D If so, I am sorry.
My rock climbing days ended before the Clinton presidency, but I really like your channel. I instruct industrial fall protection and enjoy seeing you apply some engineering practices to your tests. Basically, all of your gear doesn't meet the Z359 ANSI requirements, but I'd like to see you do some comparisons to industrial gear. Although it can be heavier than your gear I wouldn't want to climb without 2 action 5klb carabiners. Another item is looking at repeated stressing of the carabiner and how metal fatigue can set in. I've seen 5k lbs carabiners fail (usually deformation, but occasionally catastrophic) after a few dozen 1800lb loads. Keep up the great work!
I would be interested to see the strength of a rope when placed running off the edge of a cliff at a 90* angle vs when it’s a straight line - commonly seen in rappelling.
Can you test how carabiners break when caught (loaded) by the nose with gate open? Once I fell close to the wall, and apparently caught a nose of a carabiner on a draw down below with my harness. I was rather surprised by pieces of metal raining from above, because otherwise it felt just like normal fall.
Hey guys, thank you very much for the super cool results you are presenting here. These are important experiences for all people who climb something or have to do with the equipment.
I'd love to see a solid test of the beer knot. I've heard about water knots in webbing coming untied and causing deaths so I just wonder how the two knots compare in strength.
Super interesting! I feel like most of what we discover on this channel is that everything is super good enough, so It's really good to know this is something to really look out for and avoid!
Perfect testing video. I would love to see the carabiners for via ferrata. I know they have not much use in normal climbing, but the over edge load is common on ferrets, and I am just curious how they go.
I don't climb but you can tell whose carabiner's are top quality just by the design. We make some bits for a climbing company and they left us some locking ones to test their products. I was playing with it for about an hour just amazed at the work that had gone into making them.
If you ever find the time, I think it would be cool to make video testing sling to sling girth hitches. I use them this way all the time for attachment points on my harness like a PAS, or ascenders. Or even girth slings together to have them to wrap around a tree for TR anchors. My impression is it’s fine to do this for these low impact functions, but I’m curious what numbers go along with it. Thanks for all the awesome content!
I think the frame of pulling machine is the fulcrum, and the application of force on the carabiner creates leverage (because of placement) The correct verb would be levering, as said in video.
Omg I've not even watched the video yet. This is exactly what I wanted to see! Thanks! Can you test triple locking heavy duty carabiners like this as well?
I just subbed this morning after watching two videos. This is number three and am glad I subbed. I'm going to go from middle to back and middle to front.
Awesome stuff! Keep up the great work! I have a lot of books on knots and have spent hours upon hours over the years watching knot work, and I think I’ve made a new one, I’d wonder if you’d break test it 🤭. Any how newer subscriber here and y’all are awesome!
Great video! I'm excited to see your drop tower and shock loading PAS. The DMM video from years ago is a scary thought that many people might not know. Also I heard clipping two single ropes in the same carabineer (leading in a party of three) is bad. Haven't been able to find any information on this. Might be a cool experiment.
Interesting results. I think, that not only the force is important in this case, but energy too. You can see metal being bent for some time before it brakes. It would be great to take those result, and recreate them with falling mass that would create similar forces, but for short amount of time. And the opposite- smaller force but for longer time.
You should try the heavier duty carbiners. Dmm trilocks, black diamonds, rock exotica. We use those for rigging and lifelines in tree work. Would be awesome to see their capabilities.
it would be awesome if you could get a testing setup for instantaneous load instead of the progressive one youre doing now. this is much much harder on gear than an actual fall would be, for an equivalent force. maybe load some intermediate device with a remote release - like some sort of clutch. if the force doesnt break it in a couple seconds, theres no way it would break it in a fall.
-> they would need to have a machine in which they actually drop weights. But I'm not sure they are able to sample the force frequently enough to accurately measure the peak force.
@@steelonius absolutely. in these tests you see the gear gradually deforming and heating up before it ultimately breaks. if you exposed it to the peak force for a couple seconds without the extended lead-up, it wouldnt break.
@@matmay why is that? imagine the current set-up, but theres a catch in the middle that takes all the force until released. they can measure the force against it, and transfer the load to the gear simply by releasing it.
Thank you for this! I have also often wondered if the only option is a nut placement with a carabiner over an edge, would basket hitching a 60cm sling through the wire be slightly stronger than a carabiner over the edge. Or using two slings to basket hitch the wire (8 strands of material around the wire...). Our Canadian Rockies' limestone is tricky to protect (i.e. not splitter cracks) so we often encounter not-ideal placements that we have to take since protection opportunities are not as abundant as on more trad-friendly types of stone.
We use these type of carabiners to hang hammocks; using nylon webbing around trees. I've encountered a few set-up where the webbing seemed to be applying force "off center" let's say - and wondered how much that affected the strength. Although, I've never bent a 'biner this way; I will be more aware of it in the future.
Two differences that I'd be interested in seeing: replicating this with a steel carabiner and if the results would change with a dogbone in between the carabiner and the bolt. I'm guessing that the dogbone would let the angle change slightly so we might see higher numbers and steel is usually more resilient to being bent.
Hello again! One of the problems is the leverage. depending on where the carbiner contacts the obstruction, it will create a lever that turns the 5kN into 30 or something. So the measuring ist just the force you put in, but not the force the carabiner is experiencing. Also I think there is a big difference if the force is generated static and builds up quite slowly, or if its like a fall or drop into the rope. Great work guys! We encourage our rope access technicians to watch your channel!
That’s pretty cool video man I’m wondering now steel versus aluminum it will probably be a little bit more heavier but it might be good to have one or two steel ones
Seems the kicker is really when the gate itself gets cross-loaded. Makes sense - an open gate is much weaker than a closed gate. Cross loading surely doesn't help it spread the force as it should
Is that black carabiner an Omega? I bought one way back in 2008 to sling my rifle and attach it to my body armor overseas..I kept track of it this long and use it off and on for some climbing stuff..For how big it is it's kind of light. This gave me more confidence with using it too..For some reason I get feelings of it breaking under the 31..Maybe it's just in my head though.
@@bobbyhutton1989 Man I wish at least 1 company would continue making these types again..It seems like anything over 30Kn is left to rope access and safety industries...I do love a nice stainless steel, sturdy, heavy carabiner for certain things but the middle ground seems to be missing...its either 22kn or 52kn
Yeah, that is for sure an Omega Pacific. Unfortunately, that company died in 2020, I think. I have two of these, one black and one silver, and guard them carefully. This design has been around for a long time and it brings memories every time I use one of them. I cringed a little when I saw the machine start to pull on it, but happy to see that it survived.
@@8bba8 Good to hear both you guys have some old Omega feels lol...The nose does get a little snagged on your harness rack or rope..Worth it IMO though.
Sometimes I hate being a mechanical engineer and a climber, cuz I always feel compelled to come in with some mansplain-y "well actually..." 's. Quick reference though, when you have something in cantilever bending, like this, the peak stress in the material is proportional to the moment (torque) applied. Ignoring complex factors like edge radius, slippage, stretching, etc, that means that double the unsupported length means double the stress. For a circular cross section (like that locker), stress decreases by radius cubed (thickness squared in the case of a rectangular cross section). So round carabiners, twice the diameter means 1/8th the stress, and twice the thickness of the i-beam style means 1/4th the stress. So. With the fat locker, if it had been sticking out half an inch instead of one (eyeballing from the video), I would expect it to fail around 12 kN instead of 6 kN. Using some trigonometry, if the carabiner were over a 45 degree edge instead of a 90 degree one, I'd expect it to fail around 8 kN (15-16 kN with the 1/2" lever arm). Granted, stress concentrations from sharp corners are probably significant here and I wouldn't be surprised by like +/- 50% deviation from theoretical calculations. But those errors should be consistent between loading conditions, so things like halving the lever arm should still roughly double the breaking force. Love what you do here! Once I'm done with grad school and have disposable income, I plan on throwing lots of cash your way. In the meantime, I'd love to chat, particularly if you're interested in making educated guesses at breaking strengths of things before you test them, to see how close theory and practice can get.
Makes total sense. The capacities are for tension loading. Once you introduce out of plane bending you over stress the extreme fiber at which you're bending about.
I've always done whatever it takes to not lever a Krab over an edge (clip the thumb loop, girth a sling to a thumb loop). I'm shocked how little force it takes when it's anything more than what, 10% over an edge? Thanks for the test!
I'd love to see steel construction carabiner! I have a 25 kn carabiner bend on my son's therapy swing. Lol he is 30 kg and rope swing 15 kg. Hooked up on o ring either side. Just his swing motion was enough to bend it. Yesterday I bought an alloy steel pearabiner rated at 50 KN. A maillon Rapide fixed his swing( quick link). Cheers
This reminds me VIA FERRATA gear. Probably well exposed to those situations. It would be nice to do the same test with K carabineer and especially with flat profile K, probably more resistant. Thanks a lot for the video
Hey Ryan, I actually snapped one of those Camp biners a few months ago. Bit hard to explain how it happened however the biner got hung up upside down on the bolt hanger and the dogbone slipped from the bottom of the biner down the gate and split in half on the nose at the very end of the dogbone (never seen anything like it). Was surprised that the gate broke on the wip!
I see this video is 3 years old as i am making this comment, but i think a good follow up to this would be to test and see what kind of rigging you need to set up on that anchor to drop a rope or a sling over that corner to allow the biner to pull straight, and how beefy that rigging needs to be to bring the system strength back up to the biner rating.
would be nice to have a realistic climbing setup, especially for trad where the loading is often unfavourable. So maybe trying radiused edges, where he biner might look flat, but still isnt being pulled parallel to the spine. Or how the sharpness of the rock could change things, ie rough granite vs softer sandstone. A groove in the aluminium or a V block could be used to hold the biner spine down, like a vertical crack could IRL, especially if placing gear in a varying width crack,
common theme i see with newer climbers, lead up, clip pas to the anchor bolt, clip their quad in on top of their pas carabiner, then when the quad gets loaded the locker is leveraged by the pas carabiner. if you get a chance, that would be interesting to see if it damages both biners
Wow, I didn't think it'd be that big of a difference. I'm always careful about this, but a lot of my safety philosophy at this point involves recognizing how over-engineered most of our systems are. Not to say we shouldn't do everything right, but even a "good enough" placement or anchor is often strong enough to hold well beyond any load you'd ever see climbing. It's good to know the exceptions, because that could break with a good whip. For the spine loaded test, could you attach some sort of guide rails alongside the carabiner to stop it from twisting under a load? I don't think that's a likely scenario, but I'm still curious to see the results. Thanks for doing this!
Very interesting. I think one standard response to badly placed bolts where the biner is over an edge (like your machine) is to loop a runner through the bolt hanger to avoid the leverage. But just how strong is that? Is that a good response or do we end up with similar breaking numbers as we saw in your helpful tests? I would love to see some follow-up tests on this issue. Thanks!!
Confession: The carabiner may or may not have been levered on the cave wall when you were rappelling "the big one" (you know, *that one*).... sorry buddy. It was swapped for a quicklink after you got off rope, though! (:
@@justindunlap1235 you don't take falls in caving SRT... 🙃 You'll see why once that drop tower is done being built. But the spoiler is that a Venn diagram of "things we use for caving ropework" and "things that you absolutely do not fall on" is basically just a single circle.
My girlfriend wanted to have a broken carabiner for her halloween costume and I manage to break the spine of the carabiner with 2 pliers, that kind of scared me, thanks for the upload cheers
I’m a TreeClimber and have setup spar anchors where the rope is terminated to an autolocking carabiner and choked off to the spar. Is that type of side loading nearly as consequential as rock climbing? Would that be a bad practice?
Great video & tests! would be nice to see some testing of quicklinks in that setup (a common solution I see is replacing the bolt side biner with a quicklink)
I think it would bve interesting to see how much the corner geometry effects it. You have a sharp 90 degree corner. What does an even sharper 45 degree corner do? What about a blunter 135 degree? What is the difference between a sharp corner with effectively 0 radius, vs a corner with some radius? Does putting padding help?
Hi, could you test hangers where the hole has been enlarged by drilling? A sport climbing route developer in my area regularly takes 3/8" size hangers, drills the holes bigger to 1/2" in order to use the 1/2" bolts he has access to. Someone gave him a few spare 5/16" hangers that were originally intended for a cayoneering project where rappelling is the main use case. He drilled the 5/16" holes to 3/8" which he plans on using on a new sport route. Some in the group have expressed concerns that the 5/16" hangers are too small to be expanded and don't trust them to take falls. Can you do a break test video on hangers were the holes have been enlarged (eg. 3/8" hangers drilled to hold 1/2" bolts and 5/16" drilled to 3/8"). I'm the meanwhile I'd appreciate any thoughts and opinions you have on the matter. Thanks, Julian
I'm thinking about putting a couple of hand holds in a eucalyptus tree as well as some fixe hangers and 130mm 10mm stainless steel coach screws, predrilling 7mm for the length of the screw and 10mm for the shank portion any chance you could test out how many KN the coach screws can take?
It would also be interesting to load the carabiner on torsion. I had a funny scenario once while rappelling. I clipped my PAS to the chain. The combination of the carabiner being stuck by the chain and the rock put the carbiner in such a position that my PAS was pulling on it on torsion. On a static load it's not so much of a problem and can be easily corrected, but I wander what would happen on a dynamic fall. I hope my explanation is clear
I’ve seen some sketchy ish scenarios with this orientation, but just the other day I was actually hand ascending up a rope to clean a pitch, and my next piece was holding my swing. But I found that I extended the draw on the piece, and the carabiner was sitting levered on its side against a corner of a ramp. By the time I got to it, it was bent 😬
You should do another cross loading test but from an arborist perspective where you cinch the rope around a tree or limb with the carabiner. I’d be interested to see how the strength is affected because it wouldn’t be levered as much.
Would be interesting to see the rope end of a quick draw loaded the same way. Wondering if the extra freedom of movement from the dog bone would make the issue less severe.
Because you're pulling over that aluminum edge and deforming it the break values are actually a LOT higher than they would be over a tougher edge. The stress concentrations are over a lot bigger area for that brief time before it snaps. If you could get a piece of square granite to pull it past I think the numbers would be a lot scarier! Not sure it would hold up to a lot of tests but you could also just use some hardened tool steel.
A lever is the span... The placement of the fulcrum is what changes the leverage... Think of moving the fulcrum similarly to rigging up a two(or whatever) to one pulley... If the fulcrum is far to one side, then one side has a lot more leverage... If you place is in the middle, both sides have equal leverage....
Looks like (and makes sense) that cylindrical spines are stronger than I-Beam spines. Probably because the cylinder and plastic deform more and take more energy whereas an I-beam goes through a compression on one side more.
If you clip a quick draw, and the biner is levered on the edge, are you safer clipping the biner, or tying an overhand knot in the sling to shorten it?
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It seems like the carabiners intended for climbing aren't all that safe. That's why I only climb with keychains that look like carabiners.
Yeah, and I brush my teeth with a paintbrush like a real man.
@@kaidwyer not a real man unless you also use paint thinner as mouthwash…
@@kaidwyer I prefer a wire brush
One of the veterans that goes to the VA hospital next to my apartment uses only real climbing carbiners even for his groceries.
@@Co-km6cl I like using an angle grinder🤷🏻
I would be interested in seeing a more shallow angle tested.
It's rare to have a carabiner loaded over a complete 90 degree turn, but much more common to have only a slight bend.
Basically, how much bend is "safe"?
Doing it outside will be interesting!
@@HowNOT2 it would be great to see it if the carabineer was connected to a sling or dogbone (like in a cam or quickdraw) - assume that might be stronger than when connected straight into the bolt as it can see-saw more?
@@HowNOT2 Thanks so much for these tests! One thing that would be extremely helpful to test are carabiners in a choked configuration around cylindrical objects. I.e. crab clipped into alpine butterfly, rope around the object and passed through the carabiner. This is a configuration which is commonly used both in tree work (around limbs, duh :D) and in rope access around various round objects like pipes. Especially in tree work this is accepted, still there is lots of argument about whether this is safe. Some say to do it only with steel quicklinks. Others do it with steel carabiners. Or with aluminum carabiners. All locking, of course.
I would assume that this depends both on the diameter of the cylindrical object and its rigidity, i.e. steel pipe vs wood. But getting some data points here would be tremendously helpful!
I would think that as well as the angle the sharpness or bluntness of the edge may have a big impact as well.
I feel he could easily set this up with a couple different shapes pieces of UHMW over the top the frame he was already pulling on.
I want to see the degree of angle it takes to bring these break below capacity
Pretty alarming results
Bit of a wake up call, I hope, for those who are too lax about their rigging
This is one of ones that actually proved to be a problem besides knots in a rope.
Alarming results, but this also assumes the piece is being pulled against that 90° angle. Definitely something to be concerned about, but it seems like the real world situations are hard to represent accurately with only the 90° angle of the table.
What is the correct answer then? Is it to re- sling the gear to extend the biner? Had to think about a bit this yesterday on a deep keyhole TR anchor, 30° angle and padded. Won't do again...
@@BryanHaddon world be interesting to see if the results are different on a 30° angle. Possibly test different angles to determine at what point the drop in safety become intolerable (say sub 7 kN?)
I've put one of those small carabiners in a bench vise and broke it by pushing on it. With my bare hands. It took some bouncing, but it snapped.
I don't fuck with edge loading anymore.
Thank you for all of the free resources and independent testing you do for us, you really make the community a better place!
I really wish I was able to support you in a way other than hitting that sub and like button!
Thanks a million!
I've placed gear/quickdraws and sometimes anchors where there was some lever loading like this (though not at a 90° angle), and luckily I always had a different sized sling or quickdraw to move it out of this position. Good to know that I was right in taking the extra time (and carrying the extra gear) to correct it every time!
Am I the only one. That when stuff goes flying and I can't find it. I automatically start patting myself down seeing if there's any new holes that shouldn't be in me.
Nope
I do especially when hamming something in a vice
I think the most common scenario where this happens is clipping a QuickDraw through a bolt, but there is something else (like a quick link) in the bolt, and people clip over instead of under.
It would be awesome to see you test this scenario!
I was actually surprised as to HOW badly the leverage compromised the breaking strength! Thanks a lot for all the educational content!
You're the best, Ryan, I just saw a commercial for pushing the line literally ten seconds ago and youre uploading with dizzying frequency, thank you so much for not letting your youtube people fall by the wayside, love the content, all of it, and its so exciting to see content like this from someone in the same general area as I am.
As an Arborist Ive had many situations where my crabs have been in situations like this and I've thought "its still strong enough". Thanks for showing me it probably is not! Think i have a few crabs to retire now 🙄😅
Another reason why I will never get off my couch let alone climb a mountain
Better safe than sorry! Stay safe bud 🍻🍕
Crane operator says, "Side loading the boom is instant termination."
Boom driven outside can be turned over simply by wind ... that's why you measure the wind speed
I'd love to see a less severe angle on rock and see if it only slightly lowers the rating
i guess the rock will probably shatter and lower the angle even more, wildguess: ~50 to 70 reduction with a 30° soft angle
Would be interesting to see a test with carabiner attached to a hanger, clipped above and levered against a chain attached to the same hanger. Seems like a common setup for top rope anchors.
I once managed to bend a Petzl Spirit quickdraw open by placing it on top of a maillon before taking a big whipper. Although it didn’t break it was scary to hang on it. Unfortunately, it is quite common in Europe to leave a maillon in order to withdraw from a route. Usually, it’s the hardest part of the route and you don’t have time to place it belwow. I have seen people doing the exact same mistake many times.
100000% have worried about this numerous times! I will test that
@@HowNOT2 Excited to see this one! Super common setup, even if just for clipping a PAS to.
@@paramountaineering2 Just clip the maillon instead of clipping the quickdraw below it. And then remove the maillon when lowered.
Damn, nice! Yesterday I was asking myself why there is no video like this. I will watch it today evening. Can't wait to see it!
Thx for this. In a Book I read, that breaking force can go down to 2kN. If i remember right it was "Sicherheit und Risiko in Fels und Eis" (ISBN 3-7633-6016-6) not sure if there is an english version of this. But the book is amazingly and helps a lot to learn from others (deadly) mistakes.
I hope this does not sound like advertisement :D If so, I am sorry.
Love those measurements and tests/results.
My rock climbing days ended before the Clinton presidency, but I really like your channel. I instruct industrial fall protection and enjoy seeing you apply some engineering practices to your tests. Basically, all of your gear doesn't meet the Z359 ANSI requirements, but I'd like to see you do some comparisons to industrial gear. Although it can be heavier than your gear I wouldn't want to climb without 2 action 5klb carabiners. Another item is looking at repeated stressing of the carabiner and how metal fatigue can set in. I've seen 5k lbs carabiners fail (usually deformation, but occasionally catastrophic) after a few dozen 1800lb loads. Keep up the great work!
Great video!!! Thank you for taking the time to make these Ryan
I would be interested to see the strength of a rope when placed running off the edge of a cliff at a 90* angle vs when it’s a straight line - commonly seen in rappelling.
It would have been nice to have you say what they are rated for when loaded properly before you broke them.
Can you test how carabiners break when caught (loaded) by the nose with gate open? Once I fell close to the wall, and apparently caught a nose of a carabiner on a draw down below with my harness. I was rather surprised by pieces of metal raining from above, because otherwise it felt just like normal fall.
That could be a good one
Thats crazy to think people that climb would not use forged items. Seems so risky to go with these molded stuff. Nice video.
Hey guys, thank you very much for the super cool results you are presenting here. These are important experiences for all people who climb something or have to do with the equipment.
I'd love to see a solid test of the beer knot. I've heard about water knots in webbing coming untied and causing deaths so I just wonder how the two knots compare in strength.
Super interesting! I feel like most of what we discover on this channel is that everything is super good enough, so It's really good to know this is something to really look out for and avoid!
Perfect testing video. I would love to see the carabiners for via ferrata. I know they have not much use in normal climbing, but the over edge load is common on ferrets, and I am just curious how they go.
I don't climb but you can tell whose carabiner's are top quality just by the design. We make some bits for a climbing company and they left us some locking ones to test their products. I was playing with it for about an hour just amazed at the work that had gone into making them.
If you ever find the time, I think it would be cool to make video testing sling to sling girth hitches. I use them this way all the time for attachment points on my harness like a PAS, or ascenders. Or even girth slings together to have them to wrap around a tree for TR anchors. My impression is it’s fine to do this for these low impact functions, but I’m curious what numbers go along with it.
Thanks for all the awesome content!
Interesting video, happens occasionally in trad where sometimes protection has to be placed in desperation, blindly or from a stressful position
its amazing how strong the wire gates are
Great video, super useful data, much thanks.
Maybe the word you are looking for is the "fulcrum" which is the point on which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots.
I think the frame of pulling machine is the fulcrum, and the application of force on the carabiner creates leverage (because of placement) The correct verb would be levering, as said in video.
Omg I've not even watched the video yet. This is exactly what I wanted to see! Thanks! Can you test triple locking heavy duty carabiners like this as well?
I just subbed this morning after watching two videos. This is number three and am glad I subbed. I'm going to go from middle to back and middle to front.
Awesome stuff! Keep up the great work! I have a lot of books on knots and have spent hours upon hours over the years watching knot work, and I think I’ve made a new one, I’d wonder if you’d break test it 🤭. Any how newer subscriber here and y’all are awesome!
Everyone that climbs/has climbed/will climb should see these videos.
Great video! I'm excited to see your drop tower and shock loading PAS. The DMM video from years ago is a scary thought that many people might not know.
Also I heard clipping two single ropes in the same carabineer (leading in a party of three) is bad. Haven't been able to find any information on this. Might be a cool experiment.
Interesting results. I think, that not only the force is important in this case, but energy too. You can see metal being bent for some time before it brakes. It would be great to take those result, and recreate them with falling mass that would create similar forces, but for short amount of time. And the opposite- smaller force but for longer time.
Happy to see that Bobby is looking good.
You should try the heavier duty carbiners. Dmm trilocks, black diamonds, rock exotica. We use those for rigging and lifelines in tree work. Would be awesome to see their capabilities.
Hi guys great video! I have seen something similar just yesterday on the rock climbing area...
it would be awesome if you could get a testing setup for instantaneous load instead of the progressive one youre doing now. this is much much harder on gear than an actual fall would be, for an equivalent force. maybe load some intermediate device with a remote release - like some sort of clutch. if the force doesnt break it in a couple seconds, theres no way it would break it in a fall.
Even if the peak forces are equivalent?
-> they would need to have a machine in which they actually drop weights. But I'm not sure they are able to sample the force frequently enough to accurately measure the peak force.
@@steelonius absolutely. in these tests you see the gear gradually deforming and heating up before it ultimately breaks. if you exposed it to the peak force for a couple seconds without the extended lead-up, it wouldnt break.
@@matmay why is that? imagine the current set-up, but theres a catch in the middle that takes all the force until released. they can measure the force against it, and transfer the load to the gear simply by releasing it.
Thank you for this! I have also often wondered if the only option is a nut placement with a carabiner over an edge, would basket hitching a 60cm sling through the wire be slightly stronger than a carabiner over the edge. Or using two slings to basket hitch the wire (8 strands of material around the wire...). Our Canadian Rockies' limestone is tricky to protect (i.e. not splitter cracks) so we often encounter not-ideal placements that we have to take since protection opportunities are not as abundant as on more trad-friendly types of stone.
We use these type of carabiners to hang hammocks; using nylon webbing around trees. I've encountered a few set-up where the webbing seemed to be applying force "off center" let's say - and wondered how much that affected the strength. Although, I've never bent a 'biner this way; I will be more aware of it in the future.
Two differences that I'd be interested in seeing: replicating this with a steel carabiner and if the results would change with a dogbone in between the carabiner and the bolt. I'm guessing that the dogbone would let the angle change slightly so we might see higher numbers and steel is usually more resilient to being bent.
They would have to modify the table since steel would wreck that aluminum but that would be pretty interesting to see.
Hello again! One of the problems is the leverage. depending on where the carbiner contacts the obstruction, it will create a lever that turns the 5kN into 30 or something. So the measuring ist just the force you put in, but not the force the carabiner is experiencing.
Also I think there is a big difference if the force is generated static and builds up quite slowly, or if its like a fall or drop into the rope.
Great work guys! We encourage our rope access technicians to watch your channel!
That’s pretty cool video man I’m wondering now steel versus aluminum it will probably be a little bit more heavier but it might be good to have one or two steel ones
Seems the kicker is really when the gate itself gets cross-loaded. Makes sense - an open gate is much weaker than a closed gate. Cross loading surely doesn't help it spread the force as it should
muy guy i dont even climb anymore but love seeing ur scientific and standardized approach to testing. im subed!
After the new docuseries, you know that you'll have to test A-frames with the drop tower now, right? 😄👍
Is that black carabiner an Omega? I bought one way back in 2008 to sling my rifle and attach it to my body armor overseas..I kept track of it this long and use it off and on for some climbing stuff..For how big it is it's kind of light. This gave me more confidence with using it too..For some reason I get feelings of it breaking under the 31..Maybe it's just in my head though.
I do believe it is a omega. I used to have some of those in my anchor set up.
@@bobbyhutton1989 Man I wish at least 1 company would continue making these types again..It seems like anything over 30Kn is left to rope access and safety industries...I do love a nice stainless steel, sturdy, heavy carabiner for certain things but the middle ground seems to be missing...its either 22kn or 52kn
Yeah, that is for sure an Omega Pacific. Unfortunately, that company died in 2020, I think. I have two of these, one black and one silver, and guard them carefully. This design has been around for a long time and it brings memories every time I use one of them. I cringed a little when I saw the machine start to pull on it, but happy to see that it survived.
@@8bba8 Good to hear both you guys have some old Omega feels lol...The nose does get a little snagged on your harness rack or rope..Worth it IMO though.
@@50StichesSteel Rock Exotica, that's where you will find what you are looking for. Cheers.
Sometimes I hate being a mechanical engineer and a climber, cuz I always feel compelled to come in with some mansplain-y "well actually..." 's. Quick reference though, when you have something in cantilever bending, like this, the peak stress in the material is proportional to the moment (torque) applied. Ignoring complex factors like edge radius, slippage, stretching, etc, that means that double the unsupported length means double the stress. For a circular cross section (like that locker), stress decreases by radius cubed (thickness squared in the case of a rectangular cross section). So round carabiners, twice the diameter means 1/8th the stress, and twice the thickness of the i-beam style means 1/4th the stress.
So. With the fat locker, if it had been sticking out half an inch instead of one (eyeballing from the video), I would expect it to fail around 12 kN instead of 6 kN. Using some trigonometry, if the carabiner were over a 45 degree edge instead of a 90 degree one, I'd expect it to fail around 8 kN (15-16 kN with the 1/2" lever arm). Granted, stress concentrations from sharp corners are probably significant here and I wouldn't be surprised by like +/- 50% deviation from theoretical calculations. But those errors should be consistent between loading conditions, so things like halving the lever arm should still roughly double the breaking force.
Love what you do here! Once I'm done with grad school and have disposable income, I plan on throwing lots of cash your way. In the meantime, I'd love to chat, particularly if you're interested in making educated guesses at breaking strengths of things before you test them, to see how close theory and practice can get.
I was quite impressed by how well the gates on those held up! I would have figured they'd be the weakest part and therefore the first area to fail.
Makes total sense. The capacities are for tension loading. Once you introduce out of plane bending you over stress the extreme fiber at which you're bending about.
Much love for Bobby!
I've always done whatever it takes to not lever a Krab over an edge (clip the thumb loop, girth a sling to a thumb loop). I'm shocked how little force it takes when it's anything more than what, 10% over an edge? Thanks for the test!
I'd love to see steel construction carabiner! I have a 25 kn carabiner bend on my son's therapy swing. Lol he is 30 kg and rope swing 15 kg. Hooked up on o ring either side. Just his swing motion was enough to bend it. Yesterday I bought an alloy steel pearabiner rated at 50 KN. A maillon Rapide fixed his swing( quick link). Cheers
Watching this will make me safer, good job. love it guys
This is one of the most concerning videos yet. Those are some weak numbers!
This reminds me VIA FERRATA gear. Probably well exposed to those situations.
It would be nice to do the same test with K carabineer and especially with flat profile K, probably more resistant.
Thanks a lot for the video
Super good to see this tested!
Hey Ryan, I actually snapped one of those Camp biners a few months ago. Bit hard to explain how it happened however the biner got hung up upside down on the bolt hanger and the dogbone slipped from the bottom of the biner down the gate and split in half on the nose at the very end of the dogbone (never seen anything like it).
Was surprised that the gate broke on the wip!
I see this video is 3 years old as i am making this comment, but i think a good follow up to this would be to test and see what kind of rigging you need to set up on that anchor to drop a rope or a sling over that corner to allow the biner to pull straight, and how beefy that rigging needs to be to bring the system strength back up to the biner rating.
would be nice to have a realistic climbing setup, especially for trad where the loading is often unfavourable. So maybe trying radiused edges, where he biner might look flat, but still isnt being pulled parallel to the spine. Or how the sharpness of the rock could change things, ie rough granite vs softer sandstone.
A groove in the aluminium or a V block could be used to hold the biner spine down, like a vertical crack could IRL, especially if placing gear in a varying width crack,
common theme i see with newer climbers, lead up, clip pas to the anchor bolt, clip their quad in on top of their pas carabiner, then when the quad gets loaded the locker is leveraged by the pas carabiner. if you get a chance, that would be interesting to see if it damages both biners
I keep a few of those omegas around for when I’m climbing ham towers. Even my keys. Never know when you need an extra connection
Wow, I didn't think it'd be that big of a difference. I'm always careful about this, but a lot of my safety philosophy at this point involves recognizing how over-engineered most of our systems are. Not to say we shouldn't do everything right, but even a "good enough" placement or anchor is often strong enough to hold well beyond any load you'd ever see climbing. It's good to know the exceptions, because that could break with a good whip.
For the spine loaded test, could you attach some sort of guide rails alongside the carabiner to stop it from twisting under a load? I don't think that's a likely scenario, but I'm still curious to see the results. Thanks for doing this!
Love the videos man. Keep it up 🤙🏽
Wow super nice channel!
Very interesting. I think one standard response to badly placed bolts where the biner is over an edge (like your machine) is to loop a runner through the bolt hanger to avoid the leverage. But just how strong is that? Is that a good response or do we end up with similar breaking numbers as we saw in your helpful tests? I would love to see some follow-up tests on this issue. Thanks!!
It would be really interesting to break some quick links in that fashion.
Agreed
Can’t wait for the drop tower to see if there’s different results
Confession: The carabiner may or may not have been levered on the cave wall when you were rappelling "the big one" (you know, *that one*).... sorry buddy.
It was swapped for a quicklink after you got off rope, though! (:
At least you notice it before someone takes a fall on it.
Well, now I want to see how quick links break when pulled over an edge.
@@justindunlap1235 you don't take falls in caving SRT... 🙃
You'll see why once that drop tower is done being built. But the spoiler is that a Venn diagram of "things we use for caving ropework" and "things that you absolutely do not fall on" is basically just a single circle.
My girlfriend wanted to have a broken carabiner for her halloween costume and I manage to break the spine of the carabiner with 2 pliers, that kind of scared me, thanks for the upload cheers
I’m a TreeClimber and have setup spar anchors where the rope is terminated to an autolocking carabiner and choked off to the spar. Is that type of side loading nearly as consequential as rock climbing? Would that be a bad practice?
Great video & tests!
would be nice to see some testing of quicklinks in that setup (a common solution I see is replacing the bolt side biner with a quicklink)
I’m sure we’ve all thought we were super deep when in reality there was still some more to go
hmmmm
I think it would bve interesting to see how much the corner geometry effects it.
You have a sharp 90 degree corner. What does an even sharper 45 degree corner do? What about a blunter 135 degree?
What is the difference between a sharp corner with effectively 0 radius, vs a corner with some radius?
Does putting padding help?
Hi, could you test hangers where the hole has been enlarged by drilling?
A sport climbing route developer in my area regularly takes 3/8" size hangers, drills the holes bigger to 1/2" in order to use the 1/2" bolts he has access to.
Someone gave him a few spare 5/16" hangers that were originally intended for a cayoneering project where rappelling is the main use case. He drilled the 5/16" holes to 3/8" which he plans on using on a new sport route. Some in the group have expressed concerns that the 5/16" hangers are too small to be expanded and don't trust them to take falls.
Can you do a break test video on hangers were the holes have been enlarged (eg. 3/8" hangers drilled to hold 1/2" bolts and 5/16" drilled to 3/8").
I'm the meanwhile I'd appreciate any thoughts and opinions you have on the matter.
Thanks,
Julian
I'm thinking about putting a couple of hand holds in a eucalyptus tree as well as some fixe hangers and 130mm 10mm stainless steel coach screws, predrilling 7mm for the length of the screw and 10mm for the shank portion any chance you could test out how many KN the coach screws can take?
It would also be interesting to load the carabiner on torsion.
I had a funny scenario once while rappelling. I clipped my PAS to the chain. The combination of the carabiner being stuck by the chain and the rock put the carbiner in such a position that my PAS was pulling on it on torsion.
On a static load it's not so much of a problem and can be easily corrected, but I wander what would happen on a dynamic fall. I hope my explanation is clear
Hauling a double burner stove and a watermelon up El Cap. I get the feeling weight is less of a concern when it's not on your back all day.
I’ve seen some sketchy ish scenarios with this orientation, but just the other day I was actually hand ascending up a rope to clean a pitch, and my next piece was holding my swing. But I found that I extended the draw on the piece, and the carabiner was sitting levered on its side against a corner of a ramp. By the time I got to it, it was bent 😬
Great work! 👍
So awesome to see this one. Useful
If you ever test this again you could put some cheap tile on the edge to protect the slack snap!
You should do another cross loading test but from an arborist perspective where you cinch the rope around a tree or limb with the carabiner. I’d be interested to see how the strength is affected because it wouldn’t be levered as much.
Would be interesting to see the rope end of a quick draw loaded the same way. Wondering if the extra freedom of movement from the dog bone would make the issue less severe.
Because you're pulling over that aluminum edge and deforming it the break values are actually a LOT higher than they would be over a tougher edge. The stress concentrations are over a lot bigger area for that brief time before it snaps. If you could get a piece of square granite to pull it past I think the numbers would be a lot scarier! Not sure it would hold up to a lot of tests but you could also just use some hardened tool steel.
A lever is the span... The placement of the fulcrum is what changes the leverage... Think of moving the fulcrum similarly to rigging up a two(or whatever) to one pulley... If the fulcrum is far to one side, then one side has a lot more leverage... If you place is in the middle, both sides have equal leverage....
wow clearly! I saw a bolt that sits like this recently and wondered just how terrible it might be. Now I know...
Please test BINER BLOCK breaking strength!!! on rappel ring and 8mm maillon.
Probably the most real world information yet.
Good to see the biner I hold my chalk bag on with can be levered to 18kn
I somehow cannot stop thinking about the falling guy from intro :D
Looks like (and makes sense) that cylindrical spines are stronger than I-Beam spines. Probably because the cylinder and plastic deform more and take more energy whereas an I-beam goes through a compression on one side more.
great show guy, have you tested micros, tiny nuts with metal wire loops ?
If you clip a quick draw, and the biner is levered on the edge, are you safer clipping the biner, or tying an overhand knot in the sling to shorten it?