A Mobile Inspection Robot Design Analysis in ANSYS Simulation for Extreme Weather Conditions

摘要

Inspection robots can be deployed in a wide range of environments exhibiting abundance of hazards and extreme conditions which includes environments with chemicals and radiation, strong winds and extreme weather conditions, forest fires and explosions, high pressure and temperature applications, fluid flows, deep sea and space applications, and areas infected with dangerous micro-organisms and diseases. However, Oil and gas industry is the largest one among others with wide-range of challenging on-shore and off-shore inspection applications that demands automation. Moreover, most of the onshore applications necessitate direct human involvement at various levels of the business from oil and gas energy product extraction to distribution. The oil and gas facilities are mostly located in inhospitable environments with extreme hot and cold temperature conditions such as low temperatures up to -40oC in the northern parts of Canada. In this paper, a proposed mobile inspection robot design composed of materials: IM7/977-2 carbon fiber, HRH-10 Aramid Fiber/ Phenolic Resin Honeycomb, and polycarbonate is tested in a simulation environment to validate their structural integrity against extreme weather phenomenon like; under wind pressures due to wind speed of 40 m/s, extreme temperatures in the range from -60 oC to 60 oC, and robot body impact with 25 mm and above sized hailstone. Based on the steady-state and stress analysis, the body materials demonstrated excellent resistance against high wind pressures and hailstone impact. Moreover, the combined carbon fiber and aramid material design resulted in insignificant heat conduction and enhanced robustness of the robot body against extreme weather conditions.