Study On Structure Design And Pipe Passing Property Of An Active Screw-driven In-pipe Robot

With the wide application of pipeline in industry and daily life,it has been an essential job to clean and maintain pipeline.It's difficult to check out the problem of pipeline because of the long distance of pipeline and different medium inside.The emergence and development of in-pipe robots play an increasingly important role in solving the problems of inspection and maintenance of pipeline.In this paper,a new type of active screw-driven in-pipe robot is imposed.The contents of the paper include the design of structure of robot,the optimization analysis of suspension mechanism,and analysis of motion modes of robot and simulation verification.Based on the demand of improving the ability of motion and steering,the structure of the robot is divided into three parts,the driving unit,the suspension mechanism and the transmission mechanism.The 3D model of in-pipe robot is established by using the software SOLIDWORKS,and the parameters of each part are designed.In order to improve the ability to adapt to variable diameter pipeline,parts of new optimization suspension mechanism are proposed.Then one of the optimization suspension mechanism is analyzed in the paper.The designed in-pipe robot can accommodate many different types of pipes,and the most common type of pipes are selected to analyze.The motion analysis model of in-pipe robot is established in straight pipe,L type elbow and four-way elbow.The motion modes of the robot in different pipelines are analyzed,the laws of motion in pipe are studied.The motion posture of the robot under different motion modes is analyzed,and the mutual conversion between different motion postures is d iscussed.In addition,the path planning of the robot is carried out in the straight pipe,in the L type elbow and in the four-way elbow,and the kinematic models are established in these pipes.Furthermore,it is also discussed whether the robot can pass the scheduled pipe smoothly under different motion postures.The simulation models are established by using the software SOLIDWORKS and ADAMS.The different motion modes and the laws of motion of the in-pipe robot in the straight pipe are verified and analyzed.The simulation models in L type elbow are established with two typical motion postures,and the motion laws are analyzed and proved respectively.Another simulation model of robot motion in the four-way elbow is also established and the passing ability of the robot in the four-way elbow is testified.Multi-group curves are obtained to describe the motion of a robot in pipe.