CN-121973169-A - Modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot and working method thereof

CN121973169ACN 121973169 ACN121973169 ACN 121973169ACN-121973169-A

Abstract

The invention relates to a modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot and a working method thereof, which belong to the technical field of underwater robots and are formed by connecting a head joint, a plurality of middle joints and a tail joint in series, and the head joint and the tail joint are connected in series and then are surrounded on the outer wall of a pipeline in a closed loop. The invention can flexibly reconstruct the number of joints according to the pipe diameter of the underwater pipeline. In order to overcome the defect that the flexible robot is difficult to stabilize a closed loop pain point caused by underwater disturbance, the invention utilizes the conical structure to passively compensate the pose deviation caused by water flow, ensures that head and tail modules can still be accurately aligned and rigidly locked within the angle tolerance, and thereby fast forms a 360-degree fully-coated firm node in a complex riser and jacket network. In addition, a plurality of robots can be used for networking collaborative operation to jointly finish lifting, lowering and carrying operations of a heavy damaged pipeline, so that efficient and reliable technical support is provided for maintenance and overhaul of the underwater pipeline, and the technical development of power-assisted ocean engineering and underwater operation is promoted.

Inventors

XUE GANG
LI MENG
Bai Fagang
WANG JINGUANG
Chu Bofan

Assignees

山东大学

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20260409

Claims (10)

1. A modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot is characterized by being formed by connecting a head joint, a plurality of middle joints and tail joints in series; The head joints, the middle joints and the tail joints are connected end to end and then are closed-loop and are embraced on the outer wall of the pipeline.
2. The modular reconfigurable serpentine underwater pipeline operation robot of claim 1, wherein the middle joint is formed by connecting two modules through a rotary joint, one end of one module is provided with a joint connecting flange, the other end of the other module is provided with a joint connecting groove, each module is provided with an ultrasonic detector and a damping wheel mechanism, and the ultrasonic detector and the damping wheel mechanism are fixedly arranged on the upper part of the module; The bottom of the module at one side of the joint connecting groove is provided with a driving mechanism.
3. The modular reconfigurable serpentine underwater pipeline work robot of claim 2, wherein the center inside the articulating flange is provided with a spring contact pin, and a plurality of positioning pins are symmetrically and uniformly arranged between the spring contact pin and the articulating flange; and a welding disc matched with the spring contact pin is arranged in the center of the inside of the joint connection groove, and a positioning groove matched with the positioning pin is arranged between the welding disc and the joint connection groove.
4. A modular reconfigurable serpentine underwater pipeline work robot according to claim 3, wherein the drive mechanism is a propeller including a propeller motor, a propeller rotation shaft, a propeller rotation motor, a propeller mesh enclosure and a propeller.
5. The modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot of claim 4, wherein the rotary joint comprises a steering engine output flange, a steering engine bracket, a joint butt joint end disc, a friction retainer ring, a joint end cover and a joint encapsulation end cover, wherein the steering engine is arranged in the joint encapsulation end cover through the steering engine bracket, torque output ends at two sides of the steering engine are fixedly connected with the steering engine output flange, the joint end cover is fixed at two sides of the joint butt joint end disc and is in transmission connection with the steering engine output flange through a spline, so that the torque of the steering engine is converted into relative deflection movement between adjacent joints; and a friction check ring is arranged between the joint butt joint end disc and the joint packaging end cover.
6. The modular reconfigurable serpentine underwater pipeline work robot of claim 5, wherein the shock absorbing wheel mechanism comprises shock absorbing wheels, bearings, shock absorbing wheel locating pins, shock absorbing wheel connecting shafts, shock absorbing wheel supports and shock absorbing wheel springs; The damping wheel support is fixed at the top of the module, grooves are formed in two sides of the damping wheel support, and damping wheel positioning pins are vertically arranged in the grooves in two sides of the damping wheel support; the center of the damping wheel is provided with a round hole, the bearing is nested and fixed in the round hole, the middle section of the damping wheel connecting shaft penetrates through and is fixed on the inner ring of the bearing, and the damping wheel is rotatably installed on the damping wheel connecting shaft through the bearing.
7. The modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot of claim 6, wherein the butt joint surface of the head joint is provided with a convex conical butt joint structure, the center of the front end of the conical butt joint structure is fixedly embedded with an iron sheet, and the periphery side of the middle section of the conical butt joint structure is provided with an annular buckle self-locking groove; The end face center of the tail joint is concaved inwards to form a conical groove, the taper of the conical groove is completely matched with the conical butt joint structure of the head joint, an electromagnet is fixedly arranged at the bottom of the conical groove, and four radially telescopic buckles are uniformly distributed on the inner side wall of the conical groove along the circumferential direction.
8. The modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot of claim 7, wherein a buckle driving module is arranged in the tail joint and comprises a buckle spring, an electromagnet and a buckle rotating support, four buckles are radially and slidably arranged on the inner wall of the conical groove, a buckle spring for providing reset thrust is arranged on the back side of each buckle, a cylindrical pin is vertically arranged at the bottom of each buckle, the cylindrical pin extends downwards and is inserted into a guide notch of the buckle rotating support at the bottom, and the center of the buckle rotating support is fixedly connected with the torque output end of the steering engine; The rotary support of the buckle is a disc surface, four uniformly distributed curve grooves are formed in the disc surface and are respectively matched with cylindrical pins at the bottoms of the four buckles, when the rotary support of the buckle is operated, steering engine output torque drives the rotary support of the buckle to rotate, and the curve grooves on the rotary support of the buckle drive the four cylindrical pins to synchronously shrink inwards or expand outwards in the radial direction through the stirring action of the cam, so that the buckle is driven to overcome the resistance of the spring of the buckle to do radial linear motion, and rigid locking or releasing of the head joint is realized.
9. A working method of a modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot is characterized in that firstly, according to the pipe diameter of a pipeline to be detected, all middle joints are controlled to synchronously bend according to a preset angle to gradually fold the head joint towards the tail joint, in the process, an electromagnet in the tail joint is electrified to generate a magnetic field, when an iron sheet at the front end of the head joint enters a magnetic attraction range, the position and angle deviation caused by underwater disturbance can be compensated by means of a self-centering effect of a magnetic guiding and conical butting structure, the tail joint and the head joint are guided to realize accurate alignment, after alignment is completed, a buckle of the tail joint is clamped into a buckle self-locking groove of the head joint in a proper state to complete rigid mechanical locking, and at the moment, the electromagnet is powered off to reduce the whole energy consumption of the system, and the robot is butted head and tail to form a stable closed-loop structure to realize 360-degree full-wrapping encircling of the pipeline; After encircling, the control system rotates all propeller propellers to an axial advancing direction and starts the propeller propellers, hydrodynamic force generated by the propeller propellers is utilized to provide driving force for the robot to translate along a pipeline, inward pressing force is generated to drive the robot to move along the pipeline, the ultrasonic detector is triggered synchronously while the robot moves, continuous nondestructive inspection is carried out on the pipeline, radial impact force received by the damping wheels is transmitted to the damping wheel connecting shaft inside through the bearing in the operation moving process, in the damping and yielding process, the damping wheels still can keep free rolling action against the pipeline wall by depending on the bearing, sliding friction is effectively converted into rolling friction, after the damping wheel connecting shaft is pressed, the damping wheels are pressed, linear sliding displacement is generated downwards along the damping wheel positioning pins at two sides, along with the downward movement of the damping wheel connecting shaft, the damping wheel springs sleeved at the bottoms of the damping wheel positioning pins are compressed, rigid impact energy brought by the protrusions is absorbed, flexible buffering is realized, and after the damping wheels roll over the protrusions, elastic potential energy is released by the springs, the damping wheel connecting shaft is pushed upwards, and then the damping wheels are driven to restore to an initial and the outermost attaching position.
10. The working method of the modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline working robot is characterized in that when heavy-load carrying or pose adjusting operation of an underwater pipeline is carried out, a plurality of working robots are sequentially distributed along the axial direction of the pipeline to be carried, each robot independently controls own joints to synchronously bend according to a preset angle according to the outer diameter specification of the pipeline until head modules and tail modules are accurately butted and finish buckling and locking, a plurality of stable and rigid closed-loop full-wrapping encircling nodes are formed in different sections of the pipeline, then each robot synchronously rotates propeller propellers arranged on two sides to the vertical upward vector direction through propeller rotating motors and uniformly starts, and through multi-point distributed thrust cooperation, a robot cluster can overcome the dead weight and the complicated ocean current resistance of the large pipeline, and finally achieves the overall lifting, stable lowering and shifting carrying operation of the damaged or to-be-paved underwater pipeline, so that the operation boundary of the single body detection robot is greatly expanded.

Description

Modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot and working method thereof Technical Field The invention relates to a modularized reconfigurable snake-shaped underwater pipeline operation robot and a working method thereof, and belongs to the technical field of underwater robots. Background Underwater pipelines are key facilities laid in rivers, lakes and seas for transporting liquids, gases or loose solids, and the safe operation thereof is critical for the development of marine oil and gas and the environmental protection. With the increase of service time, submarine pipelines are extremely easy to corrode, deform or crack, so that periodic external nondestructive inspection and maintenance detection of the submarine pipelines are an indispensable link. Because part of long-distance pipeline is buried under the seabed, the current external flaw detection and operation mainly focuses on pipe sections exposed in water, especially vertical distributed risers and structurally staggered jackets in ocean platforms. The facility bears direct impact of changeable ocean currents for a long time, and extremely high requirements are put on flexible cutting-in, tight encircling and obstacle surmounting climbing capabilities of the flaw detection robot. In recent years, in-situ detection by using an underwater robot to carry a detection instrument has become a mainstream trend, but the conventional equipment has obvious limitations in practical application in the face of complex submarine topography and changeable pipe diameter specifications. Currently, robots applied to underwater pipeline flaw detection mainly comprise fixed ring sleeve type, self-adaptive spring bracket type, rigid connecting rod clamping type and the like. For a fixed loop equipment, for example, patent application No. 202311780569.X discloses an underwater pipeline inspection robot that moves the inspection robot by sleeving the robot entirely on a pipeline through a body loop. However, such a fixed closed loop robot must be nested in and removed from the end of the pipeline and is only suitable for straight underwater pipelines with a short overall length. The equipment can not be flexibly assembled, disassembled and reconfigured in the field in the middle section of the pipeline in the face of a long-distance submarine pipeline or a complex riser densely distributed on flanges. In order to improve pipe diameter adaptability and realize middle section installation, part of equipment adopts a self-adaptive adjusting or opening and closing clamping structure. For example, patent application number 202210721849.2 discloses an underwater petroleum pipeline inspection robot that employs adjustable probe buckles with directional control springs to accommodate different pipe diameters. However, such a device that relies on springs to maintain the fit has limited stability of the coating against complex sea currents. More troublesome, affected by seabed subsidence or external impact, damaged pipelines often need in-situ repair, cutting sleeve replacement or auxiliary new pipe laying, and thus the heavy underwater pipelines need to be lifted integrally, stably or accurately. However, the limited thrust of the above-described single robot is obviously difficult to be able to cope with such heavy-duty operations. In order to enhance the stability of clamping, the invention patent application with the application number 202310181049.0 discloses an intelligent multidirectional controllable X-ray flaw detection device for underwater and water pipelines. The device adopts basic support body and assembly clamp pole structure, realizes the centre gripping to the pipeline through anchor clamps switching push rod to utilize axial displacement electric drive wheel and winding axle steering structure to remove the flaw detection on the pipeline. However, the mechanical structure which is folded and clasped by means of a plurality of groups of rigid assembly clamping rods (such as the first, second and third assembly clamping rods) is large and heavy, the adaptability to the severe change of the pipe diameters is limited by the fixed size of the rigid rod pieces, meanwhile, the obstacle crossing capability of the complex external wheel type driving mechanism when facing the flange of the pipeline or the surface attachments is poor, and as a single detection tool, the complex external wheel type driving mechanism still cannot realize heavy load operations such as lifting, lowering, shifting and carrying of the damaged pipeline in a multi-machine cooperation manner. Therefore, the existing marine pipeline operation robot cannot simultaneously realize flexible reconstruction of the middle section of the long-distance pipeline and precise closed-loop lamination of multiple pipe diameters, and lacks comprehensive capability of carrying out pipeline lifting and carrying cooperatively by multiple machines. These defects severely restrict the dev