Development of a novel oil and gas in-pipe robot

摘要

Current special track wells are widely used in oil and gas exploration and development. One of the key to restrict technological development of the special track wells is how to transport downhole tools and testing instruments to the required location, and complete the relevant works in the oil-gas wellbores. In addition, long-distance pipelines are indispensable in transporting the exploited oil and gas resources to users. Detection, maintenance and working condition monitoring in oil and gas pipelines are the foundation and key technology of long-distance pipelines' safe operation. Completions of these tasks are in urgent need to devise a kind of in-pipe robot with large tractive force and simple structure. A novel oil and gas in-pipe robot with helical drive is proposed in this paper. Geometric calculation and mechanical analysis have been done to help designing the robot. Trafficability experiment and traction measurement have been done to verify the robot's good characteristic. The experiments showed that the robot can go through the steps barrier of pipe joint with different diameters successfully, and the maximum tractive force of the robot is 490.2 N.