Fatigue Failure in Piano Wire

[Dan Squire]

At 03:19 PM 9/8/95 -0600, Mr. Todd wrote:
>Dan,
>   A question. What effect, if any, does the drawing of the wire have on
>breakage?

Mr. Todd:
That is a great question.  As far as piano wire is concerned it is a
question that is best left to the piano wire manufacturer because they
know their drawing process, thermal treatments, and properties of
the product they produce.

In general, when a steel wire is cold drawn through a die the wire is being
cold worked. Cold work is the percent reduction in cross sectional area of the
metal being reduced.  This cold working produces changes in the grain
shape of the wire causing it to work or strain harden. As the percent cold work
increases the elongation decreases, the tensile and yield strength increase.

When I get some free time I'll go into more detail.

Dan Squire