Research On Motion Performance Of Wheeled Drainage In-pipi Detection Robots

When wheeled robots move in muddy pipelines or on soft soil, the mobility andtravelling-capability is closely related to the physical characteristics of the soil andthe structure of wheels of the robot. Due to the presence of buoyancy, the pressureof wheel-terrain interaction will be reduced. In order to improve the ability of robotspassing through this environment, the combination of specific soil, robotskinematics, dynamics would be required to model and analysis.In this paper, finite element software Hypermesh and Abaqus are adopted toestablish a model in which a pipeline robot moves in the soft soil and muddy road.The pattern of wheel is simplified. The robotic and the pipe are defined as rigid body.The soil and sludge are defined as flexible body. Soft soil is defined by CapPlasticity material model and sludge is defined by Drucker Prager material model.Firstly, the shape of the wheel is designed to be much larger than the contactarea of the wheel of general structure. Through simulation we get the displacementcurve and traction coefficient curve when wheels have different structures and areloaded by different loads on rigid pavement, loose soil, and muddy road. In soft soil,when the soil adhesion coefficient is small, the motion performance of conventionalwheel structure is superior to the improved wheel. But when the soil adhesioncoefficient increase the adaptability of general structure of the wheel is better thanimproved structure. The motion performance of the robot equipped with generalstructure does not change significantly. By contrast the improved wheel structure ismore sensitive to the change of environment, especially in the muddy road, motionperformance declines dramatically.The load of robot has great influence on motion performance. When the load isrelatively small, it cannot drag the cable. When the load is relatively large, motionperformance of robot declines dramatically. This paper found in the muddy pipelineenvironment there is an optimal load range. With this load, the pipeline robot has arelatively optimal motion performance.In experimental aspects through current changes we observe effects of differentloads when the robot moves on the hard road, the land surface, muddy road.This simulation results provide some reference on the design and improvementof the robot moving on different pipeline. In this paper the wheel is defined as rigidbody, if you need to get a more accurate result, in future studies the wheel will needto be flexible handle. Besides, this paper just considers several particularenvironment, if you need to apply to more pipeline, you need to create more soil model for extensive research.