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Structural Design and Horizontal Wave Force Estimation of a Wall-Climbing Robot for the Underwater Cleaning of Jackets

Authors :
Shilong Jiao
Xiaojun Zhang
Lingyu Sun
Yusheng Shi
Minglu Zhang
Source :
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Vol 12, Iss 9, p 1612 (2024)
Publication Year :
2024
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2024.

Abstract

Currently, divers face significant safety risks when cleaning marine organisms from the steel structures of offshore underwater platform jackets. Consequently, utilizing robots instead of divers to carry out underwater biofouling removal operations will be an important development direction for the underwater maintenance of offshore platforms in the future. In this study, a wall-climbing robot was designed to clean marine organisms from the underwater surface of a platform jacket leg. The overall structure of the underwater cleaning wall-climbing robot is introduced, including the cleaning actuator and the variable curvature-adapted connecting rod mechanism. The corresponding relationship between the variable curvature-adapted connecting rod mechanism and the jacket leg is analyzed in detail. The variable curvature-adapted connecting rod mechanism was optimized using a genetic algorithm to ensure that the underwater cleaning wall-climbing robot can adapt to a minimum diameter of 1 m for the jacket leg. By drawing on Airy wave theory and random wave theory, the Airy wave parameters for waves were analyzed under different sea conditions, considering practical application scenarios. By using Fluent software 2022, a 2D numerical wave tank was constructed to simulate waves under various sea conditions, and the wave surface shapes for different sea states were determined. By building on the Morison equation, a method for calculating the horizontal wave forces on the underwater cleaning wall-climbing robot using the equivalent area and equivalent volume is proposed. By using the two aforementioned methods, the horizontal wave forces on the underwater cleaning wall-climbing robot under specific sea states were determined. The horizontal wave forces of the underwater cleaning wall-climbing robot under different sea conditions were analyzed and simulated in a 3D numerical wave tank. By comparing the theoretical analysis results with the numerical simulation results, where the maximum difference at the extreme points is approximately 11%, the feasibility of the proposed horizontal wave force estimation method was verified.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20771312
Volume :
12
Issue :
9
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.10eaffc703e64b5c83b23a645463293c
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12091612