Pipe Inspection Robot

Robots are used to remove human being from laborious and dangerous work. This project describes an inpipe inspection robot. This robot consist of a fore leg system, a rear leg system and a body. The fore and rear leg systems are constructed by using three worm gear system that are arranged at an angle of 120 degree with respect to each other to operate inside a pipe of different diameters. The springs are attached to each leg and the robot body to operate in pipes of 140mm to 200mm diameter range. Here, all major components of robot are designed. Modelling and assembly of robot components is done in Solidworks 11. Stress analysis of all major components is done in Solidworks 11 and Static stress analysis of proposed in-pipe inspection robot assembly is carried out in Ansys 13. This robot is used for offline visual inspection of gas pipelines, water pipelines and drain pipes etc. This robot also has wide applications in chemical industries as well as in gulf countries for inspection of oil and gas pipelines.

IJIRMPS, 2018

Nowadays facing many problems related to repairing, inspection and maintenance of interior pipelines. To avoid this risk and reduce the time of inspection, repairing, maintenance of interior pipes. One of the most important requirements in repairing and maintaining of pipelines is the ability to monitor and evaluate the pipes interior. This work deals with the modeling, simulation and prototyping of an apparatus to piping systems for inspection, cleaning and examination of the interior piping systems. The mechanism involves a central rod upon which a translational element is fitted which in turn is connected to three frames of links, joints and wheels. DC motors are attached to the wheels to achieve the drive required. The mechanism allows for small accommodation in pipe diameters. An electronic and controlling circuit consisting of relay switches is used to control the entire circuit of DC motors, camera and translational element. The camera is mounted on the top of the assembly of robot. The robot may allow for detection of cracks, buckle, corrosions, fitting and many others.

2016

Pipeline is the major tool of transportation. It has been proven that the pipeline is the safest way to transport and distribute Gases and Liquids. Many kinds of pipes are being used for water and gas supply in our contemporary society. Also pipelines are widely used in chemical industries and in gulf countries for carrying petrol, diesel, oil etc. But recently many troubles are occurring in the pipelines because of natural calamities and mechanical damages from third parties and defects are occurring in the pipelines. If the defects in the pipe are caused by aging, corrosion, rust and nature calamity then it is difficult to find out the defects and the place of the defects, and also there is great amount of loss. So we require to schedule the inspection. If we decide to do this inspection manually then large amount of time, effort and labour is necessary to grub up the pipes that are buried in the ground. If the robot can inspect inside the pipes, fast and accurate examination is able to do at low cost. With a considerable history behind the development of robotics, in-pipe inspection robots can be coarsely classified into seven different sub-categories based on their movement pattern and applications. Fig. 1(a) shows Pig type robot which is one of the most popular commercial robot. Generally this robot don't use additional driving utilities to move along the pipeline. This type of robot is usually used when there is a sufficient flow in the pipeline. Practically this type of robot is used in pipelines with large diameters. Fig. 1(b) shows Wheel type robot. This robot is only applicable in horizontal pipelines. As shown in Fig. 1(c), Caterpillar type robot is usually used in such conditions where more grip is demanded on the wall of the pipeline. Figure 1: Classification of in-pipe robots. (a) Pig type. (b) Wheel type. (c) Caterpillar type. (d) Wall-press type. (e) Walking type. (f) Inchworm type. (g) Screw type. [1]

IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, 2014

Robotics application has slowly increasing for the past 13 years. Much increase was seen in 2011. This review paper was written to study the robotics application in various industries mainly in pipeline inspection. This review paper was to fulfil the requirement of Automation and Robotics module assessment. The objectives of this review paper are; to observe different robotics applications in pipelines inspection, to learn the different design of robots in pipeline inspection, to outline the problems and adaptability improvements in the robotics application that was applied. The major problem of in-pipe inspection robots found is the different in diameter of pipes in any plant. And other problem relative to the inspection ways for different types of pipe applications.At the end of this review paper, it was concluded that improvements were seen in few designs of the robot example like the Parallelogram wheel leg.

IASET, 2021

Pipe inspection is of great importance for assessing the integrity of the pipe in various pipeline industries. Pipe inspection eliminates human intervention from hazardous environments and accidents. There are multiple pipe inspection methods like X-ray, Magnetic acoustic testing, eddy current testing, and visual inspection, but pipe inspection using a robotic system is a promising one. A pipe inspection robot is usually fitted with a camera and other sensors that carry out a check. Due to geometrical changes of pipe-like joints, couplings, T sections, reducers, valves, while designing pipe inspection robots, various factors such as restricted manoeuvrability, complex designing, steering designing, adhesive forces during vertical motion have to be considered. This makes it necessary for proper designing and selection of mechanisms. Therefore, this paper provides a systematic review of various models that are available for pipe inspection. This paper will classify pipe inspection robots briefly into outer pipe inspection and inner pipe inspection robots.

IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, 2016

An in-pipe inspection robots are designed to remove the labour force and to act in inaccessible environment. In this paper we present a comprehensive study of in-pipe inspection robot. After some period every pipeline requires inspection and maintenance to ensure their safety and integrity. So, in-pipe inspection robots are used to inspect varies pipeline elements such as straight pipelines, elbow and branches internally. Inpipe inspection robot inspect the pipes of various size and find the defects and obstacles in the pipes. There are many in-pipe inspection robots which are differ by their power source, steering mechanism and application. This paper also shows the comparative study of different in-pipe inspection robots. Section 6 shows the new developed steering mechanism for improvising working style of in-pipe inspection robot. Still the applications of in-pipe inspection robots are limited according to pipeline material, pipe size and working environment.

Basically robots are designed in such way that they remove human intervention from labour intensive and hazardous work environment, sometimes they are also used to explore inaccessible work places which are generally impossible to access by humans. The inspection of pipe comes in same category because they carry toxic chemicals, fluids and most of the time has small internal diameter or bends which become inaccessible to human. The complex internal geometry and hazard content constraints of pipes demand robots for inspection of such pipes in order to check corrosion level of pipe, recovery of usable parts from pipe interior, sampling of sludge and scale formation on pipe internal surface etc. Several designs of In-pipe inspection robots (IPIR) have been proposed in the literature to solve the problems related with inspection of these complicated internal geometries. Designing of an in-pipe inspection robot (IPIR) is a difficult task and hence the designer must take care of the design issues like Mobility, Steer ability, Turning radius, Size and shape adaptability, Online adaptability, Flexibility, Stability, Autonomous operation and obstacle avoidance, Efficiency at uneven surface, Safe operation, Material selection, Type of task to be performed inside the pipe, Number of actuators, Operation in active pipe line, Retrieval of robot, User friendly navigation and control system, Range of operation, Quantitative analysis of defects inside the pipe. Based on above, this research work presents investigations into design issues pertaining to development of In-pipe inspection robotics and proposes a new model of an In-pipe inspection robot to overcome some critical design issues. This proposed model is a screw drive type wall press adaptable wheeled In-pipe inspection robot. It is able to move through vertical, horizontal pipes and it can easily pass through elbow of a pipe line. This model comprises of three modules-rotor, stator and control unit. The Rotor module has three wheels mounted on the outer periphery with a helix angle of 15. Wheels of rotor follow the helical path on the internal surface of pipe line and move in the longitudinal direction inside the pipe.

MATEC Web of Conferences, 2018

Pipelines require periodical inspection to detect corrosion, deformation and congestion with obstacles in the network. Autonomous mobile robots are good solutions for this task. Visual information from the pipe interior associated with a location stamp is needed for inspection. In this paper, the previous designs of autonomous robots are reviewed and a new robot is developed to ensure simple design and smooth motion. Images are processed online to detect irregularity in pipe and then start capturing high resolution pictures to conserve the limited memory size. The new robot moves in pipes and provides video stream of pipe interior with location stamp. The visual information can later be processed offline to extract more information of pipeline condition to make maintenance decisions.

International Journal of Engineering Sciences

This paper presents a screw driven in-pipe inspection robot (IPIR) that runs on the principle of screw. The IPIR composed of a fore leg system, rear leg system, connectors and a DC motor. In this research work, a prototype of in-pipe inspection robot has been designed and developed. To verify the potency of the driving mechanism of IPIR, numbers of experiments are conducted through straight pipes, couplings, and 90-degree bends of 8 to 10 inches diameter range at 0-degree, 45 degree, and 90 degree inclination. This robot can be utilized for special tasks such as inspection, maintenance, and cleaning of water pipelines, gas pipelines, oil pipelines, and sewage systems.

In modern era of industrialization pipeline is the most common way of inbound and outbound transportation of the fluids. The maintenance and inspection of pipe line is also necessary to prevent it from blockage and leakage. Sometime pipelines are used to carry toxic fluids so it will become harmful to do manual inspection and maintenance. Inspection of underground pipeline is also a complicated task for human. Robots are used to remove the risk involvement and complexity of the task related to pipe inspection and maintenance. The design of a new screw drive type In-Pipe Inspection Robot (IPIR) is presented in this paper. Rotor, stator and motor housing are the main parts of the designed robot. Rotor of robot consist three angled wheels mounted on elastic arms, which are placed on the periphery of rotor. Separation angle of each elastic arm is 1200. Rotor is connected to the motor with the help of a coupling. Rotor converts the rotary motion of motor shaft in to linear motion of whole robot which pulls the robot in the longitudinal direction of pipe line. Two or more rotor can be used which depends on the pay load, torque requirement, and working environment of robot. Stator of robot consists of three spring loaded straight wheels on the outer periphery. Motor and control units are the part of stator module. Stator provides the stability to the robot and prevents the body of robot from the rotation which occurs due to reaction of the robot. In screw type robot camera, sensors and other actuation devices can me mounted. In case of wireless robot, battery and wireless control module are also integral part of the stator. Basic model of screw type in-pipe inspection robot composed of single motor to actuate the screw drive mechanism of the robot is considered. Stator and rotor consists of three wheels which are mounted on the elastic arm. So the calculation of the required motor torque, spring stiffness for elastic arm, wheel tilt angle, dimensions of shaft and coupling are presented in this paper.