РАЗРАБОТКА ДИНАМИЧЕСКОЙ МОДЕЛИ ДЛЯ ОЦЕНКИ ПРОФИЛЬНОЙ ПРОХОДИМОСТИ ДВУХЗВЕННОГО ВНУТРИТРУБНОГО РОБОТА

Abstract

The ability of a multi-unit in-pipe robot to drive through curved sections of a pipeline is an importantindicator of its capability to move through the pipeline. At the design stage, this indicatorcannot be verified without mathematical simulation of the robot spatial movement and interaction ofits running gear with the pipeline. The objective of this work is to create a dynamical model for evaluationof the two-link in-pipe wheeled robot capability to drive through a pipeline. The model wasdeveloped in the Universal Mechanism multibody system simulation program with the use of itsstandard elements of the mechanical system modeling and a special-purpose wheel – pipeline contactmodel developed by the authors. The wheel – pipeline contact model was created in MATLAB andcompiled as a DLL. The developed multibody model was verified by the robot behavior during itsmotion through a bent section of the pipeline and by the time histories of the indicators of its capabilityto drive through the pipeline. Two directions of the pipeline bend were studied. The minimumdistance from the extruding electric motors of the robot actuators to the internal surface of the pipelinehas been offered as an indicator of the robot ability to move through the pipeline. The analysis ofthe simulation results has proved the adequacy of the model behavior and showed that the developedmultibody model can be used for the evaluation of the robot capability to move through the pipelineat the early design stages before fabrication of its prototype.