Unilateral self-locking mechanism for inchworm in-pipe robot

来源期刊：中南大学学报(英文版)2010年第5期

论文作者：乔晋崴 尚建忠 陈循 罗自荣 张详坡

文章页码：1043 - 1048

Key words：unilateral self-locking mechanism; traction; inchworm; in-pipe robot

Abstract: A unilateral self-locking mechanism (USM) was proposed to increase the tractive ability of the inchworm in-pipe robots for pipeline inspection. The USM was basically composed of a cam, a torsional spring and an axis. The self-locking and virtual work principles were applied to studying the basic self-locking condition of the USM. In order to make the cooperation between the crutch and telescopic mechanism more harmonical, the unlocking time of the USM was calculated. A set of parameters were selected to build a virtual model and fabricate a prototype. Both the simulation and performance experiments were carried out in a pipe with a nominal inside diameter of 160 mm. The results show that USM enables the robot to move quickly in one way, and in the other way it helps the robot get self-locking with the pipe wall. The traction of the inchworm robot can rise to 1.2 kN, beyond the limitation of friction of 0.497 kN.