Wire breakage may occur in steel strands in complex engineering environments. In order to effectively identify broken wire signals, a self-sensing steel strand with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) strain sensor embedded and pre-stressed to the center wire of the steel strand is fabricated in this paper. The sensitivity of self-sensing steel strand to the identification of broken wire signals is analyzed to explore the correlation between the damage area and location of cables and the strength of broken wire signals. Taking the damage area, damage location and sensor location of ordinary steel strands as research variables, three groups of tension wire breaking tests are carried out on cables composed of 16 ordinary steel strands and 3 self-sensing steel strands. The test results show that the respective sensing strands can accurately identify the broken wire signal, and the identification of broken wire signal is independent of the distribution position of FBG measuring points in the self-sensing steel strand. The time period of the broken wire signal detected by each sensor is basically the same, and the strength of the broken wire signal collected by the FBG sensor is related to the location and degree of the common steel strand damage.