Wire ropes,employed extensively in coal mine hoists and transportation systems are subject to damage due to wear,corrosion and fatigue.The extent of damage and the carrying capacity of ropes are closely related to the sense of safety by staff and equipments.Magnetic flux leakage detection method(MFL),as an effective method,is these days widely used in detection of broken strands of wire ropes.In order to improve the accuracy of detection of flaws in wire ropes by magnetic flux leakage(MFL),the effect of the distance between a sensor and the surface of a wire rope(i.e.,lift-off) on detection by magnetic flux leakage was in-vestigated.An analysis of the main principles for the choice of lift-off is described by us and a new method that improves the structure of the detector is proposed from the point of view of the design of a magnetic circuit,to restrain the impact of fluctuations of sensor lift-off.The effect of this kind of method is validated by simulation and computation.The results show that the detection sensitivity is markedly increased by this method.Furthermore,the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) can be increased by over 28%.This method will lend itself to offer reliable scientific information to optimize the structure of excitation devices and improve the accuracy of MFL detection. Wire ropes, employed extensively in coal mine hoists and transportation systems are subject to damage due to wear, corrosion and fatigue. The extent of damage and the carrying capacity of ropes are closely related to the sense of safety by staff and equipments. Magnetic flux leakage detection method (MFL), as an effective method, is these days widely used in detection of broken strands of wire ropes.In order to improve the accuracy of detection of flaws in wire ropes by magnetic flux leakage (MFL), the effect of the distance between a sensor and the surface of a wire rope (ie, lift-off) on detection by magnetic flux leakage was investigated. An analysis of the main principles for the choice of lift-off is described by us and a new method that improves the structure of the detector is proposed from the point of view of the design of a magnetic circuit, to restrain the impact of fluctuations of sensor lift-off. The effect of this kind of method is validated by simulation and computation.The results show that the detection sensitivity is markedly increased by this method. Still further, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be increased by over 28%. This method will lend itself to provide reliable scientific information to optimize the structure of excitation devices and improve the accuracy of MFL detection.