[WRE UPDATE | BUSINESS] L Slackliners Employ oad Cells to Measure Line Tension


Slackline is different from tightrope in the obvious sense that the line has visible slack. Highliners typically employ a harness connected to the line as seen here.


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hrill seekers who participate in an extreme sport called slackline have employed Straightpoint wireless load shackles and other load cells to measure the tension on lines before stepping onto them, sometimes hundreds of feet in the air.


In its simplest sense, slackline is different from tight rope walking in that the line has visible slack in it. When in use there is an appreciable dip in the line between the anchor points where the person is walking. Slackliners use force measurement equipment to record a standing tension when the line is tightened and measure leash falls. David Kingston, a physical therapist by day, has been slacklining for 16


years and is a long-time user of dynamometers. However, he has only recently embraced wireless load shackles which, ironically, are more typically suited to low headroom applications in the industrial sector. Kingston said: “We walk on 1-in.-wide flat webbing made of different materials, usually nylon or polyester. Tight rope walkers tend to have their lines much tighter and also have guy wires that keep the line from swinging at certain intervals across the line. With slacklines there tends to be more movement. When we take the slackline up, we call it high lining.”


MARCH–APRIL 2017 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE


The dynamometer adds length to the anchor so slackliners don’t have to jump when they walk off the line.


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