Effect of high pressure water jet cleaning device on the motion stability of an in-pipe cleaning robot

The in-pipe cleaning robot (IPCR) is a new equipment for pipelines cleaning. However, most existing in-pipe robots are used to inspection and simple maintenance, etc. They cannot effectively complete the pipelines cleaning works, especially large diameter pipelines. This paper proposes a novel wheeled and wall-pressing type IPCR equipped with new high pressure water jet cleaning device. The whole mechanisms of the proposed IPCR are designed and a novel preload mechanism is applied to guarantee the IPCR reach to the target operation distance. Based on the multi-body theory, the contact mechanisms model is built. The motion equation and differential-algebraic equations of the IPCR system are obtained respectively. To verify the effect of the high pressure water jet cleaning jet on the motion stability of the IPCR, the virtual simulation platform is established in software RecurDyn and some simulation experiments are carried out. The results show that under the condition of sufficient preload force, the high pressure water jet cleaning device starts after the main body runs stable, which can guarantee the global motion stability.