EQUIPMENT MODELLING AND WORKSPACE SIMULATION OF SPECIAL-PURPOSE ROBOT FOR HYDRAULIC TURBINE REPAIR WITH 3D STUDIO MAX

EQUIPMENT MODELLING AND WORKSPACE SIMULATION OF SPECIAL-PURPOSE ROBOT FOR HYDRAULIC TURBINE REPAIR WITH 3D STUDIO MAX
Li Heqi1 ,Yang Ping1,2, Zhang Shuzheng2, Dang Xingwu2, Liu Mixia2 1 College of Materials Science and Engineering 2 College of Mechano-electronic Engineering Gansu University of Technology (China)

ABSTRACT
Special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair is an automatic equipment employed to repair the destruction of hydraulic turbine caused by cavitation erosion and sand abrasion, which is one of important automatic equipment to be urgently developed for water power industry in this country. During the process of robot design, a constant attention should be paid to the problem of static or dynamic mechanical interference caused by the configuration and dimension of the robot and a scientific prediction is to be advanced for robot design to reduce the consumption of time and money caused by design failure. Therefore, general procedure of application of 3D Studio MAX is briefly introduced in this paper first and, taking the software of 3D Studio MAX as an operation platform, a physical model of the configuration of special robot for hydraulic turbine repair is built up and the workspace of the robot is simulated so that the morphology and dimension of robot workspace designed are obtained and the problem of static and dynamic mechanical interference is solved during the period of configuration designing of the special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair. This could lay down a solid foundation for development of special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair corresponding with the needs of domestic situation. IIW-Thesaurus keywords: Robots; Water turbines; Turbines; Repair; Maintenance; Simulating.

1 INTRODUCTION
The special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair is an automatic equipment employed to repair the destruction of hydraulic turbine caused by cavitation erosion and sand abrasion, which is one of important automatic unit to be urgently developed for water power industry in this country as well. It is required that this robot should be of small configurational dimension, compact structure, light mass, and wide coverage, so that the static or dynamic mechanical interference caused by the configuration and dimension of robot are to be avoided and, in the mean time, the robot workspace, i.e. the coverage should be guaranteed to be big enough during the period of robot design. Employing three-dimensional animated simulation technology for the design and development of new products, the practical operational condition of products can be simulated under real-time condition so that the problems can be exposed in advance and corrected in time, avoiding consequential errors and losses. 3D Studio MAX is an animation elaboration software with strong functions and easy manipulation, being ever-increasingly adopted in the field of machine building, TV advertisement, education, amusement, computer game, etc. Along with wide application of CAD technique in Doc. ICRA-2003-02
Welding in the World, Vol. 49, n 1/2, 2005

machine-building industry, the three-dimensional animation is playing ever more important role in product design. Taking the software 3D studio MAX as an operation platform and associating with the CAD for special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair, a three-dimensional physical model of the configuration of specialpurpose robot for the reparation of the runner of mixed flow hydraulic turbine and the turbine itself is developed and the workspace of robot is simulated with animation technique so that the morphology and dimension of robot workspace designed are obtained and the physical configuration design of this special-purpose robot is checked and revised.

2 3D PHYSICAL MODELLING OF MIXED FLOW HYDRAULIC TURBINE RUNNER

2.1 Blade modelling of mixed flow hydraulic turbine runner
The blade equation is: 1 T T x (u, v) = UNBXN V 36 y (u, v) = 1 T T UNBYN V , u 0, v 1 36

EQUIPMENT MODELLING AND WORKSPACE SIMULATION OF SPECIAL-PURPOSE ROBOT FOR HYDRAULIC TURBINE REPAIR WITH 3D STUDIO MAX

z (u, v) =

1 T T UNBZN V 36

where U = (u3, u2, u, 1) V = (v3, v2, v, 1) N=1 1 N= 6 N=1

1 3 3 6 3 0 1 4

3 3 3 1

1 0 0 0

)
Figure 2 3D physical model of mixed flow hydraulic turbine runner

Bx = (xij)44 By = (yij)44 Bz = (zij)44 Because of the big dimension of the blade, it is divided into multiple portions for ensuring that there is no distortion with the curve fitting. Double cubic specimen function B is adopted for curve fitting of every blade portion. By so doing, the connection between any two portions will be smooth, making whole surface of the blade smooth thereby as shown in Figure 1.

2.2 3D physical modelling of mixed flow hydraulic turbine runner

3D physical modelling of mixed flow hydraulic turbine runner is generated from its 2D place view drawing by means of software 3D Studio MAX as shown in Figure 2.

3 CONFIGURATIONAL DESIGN OF MAIN PART AND OF 3D PHYSICAL MODELLING OF SPECIAL-PURPOSE ROBOT FOR HYDRAULIC TURBINE REPAIR
3.1 Design of main part of special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine
The robot must be small in size, agile in construction, easy to install and dismount, and of large coverage within a cramped on-the-spot spaces. It consists of

mobile carrier and manipulation arm. The former is driven by in caterpillar bands with adsorptive electromagnets inlaid on the chains forming a magnetic caterpillar. In spite of the morphology of blade surface, there are enough electromagnets to adsorb the blade, making the robot walk on the blade surface. The manipulation arm with a serial mechanism of degree of freedom 5 is fixed on the mobile carrier which can go deep into gap between the blades to weld and polish the blades as shown in Figure 3.

3.2 3D physical modelling of special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair

3D physical modelling of manipulation arm of the robot is performed by using 3D Studio MAX software as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3 Structure sketch of the robot

Figure 1 Fitted blade surface

Figure 4 3D physical modelling of manipulation arm of the robot

EQUIPMENT MODELLING AND WORKSPACE SIMULATION OF SPECIAL-PURPOSE ROBOT FOR HYDRAULIC TURBINE REPAIR WITH 3D STUDIO MAX

4 SIMULATION OF WORKSPACE OF SPECIAL-PURPOSE ROBOT FOR HYDRAULIC TURBINE REPAIR

4.1 Workspace of robot
Workspace of robot is defined as the set of all spatial approachable by the terminal actuator with all possible sweep of all joints in the robot. This is called as overall workspace of robot. There is another concept of robot workspace-sub-overall workspace which means the set of all spatial positions of the center of form of terminal actuator under the same situation as above mentioned. This spatial set is specially called as approachable workspace where the possible variation of the attitude of terminal actuator is not included. An animated simulation of this approachable workspace is to be conducted in this paper for the special-purpose robot of hydraulic turbine repair. Figure 5 Main process of making animated simulation of workspace of the robot

4.2 Process of basic animated simulation with 3D studio MAX

There are several stages in performing three-dimensional animated simulation by using 3D Studio MAX software as follows: Create three-dimensional physical model r Edit and modify the model r Assign material r Create illumination and environment r Set up camera r Design key picture frame and object motion (if not conform to requirement, then return to edit the stage of and modify the model) r Lay on the colours to picture r Output animation. To make a good animated simulation, the order of above mentioned stages are not immutable; in other words, you can often use the stages flexibly and crisscross. The emphasis is to be laid on the key frame technique in the process of animated simulation. The mobile objects are laid on the key frames occurred at particular instant of time; others are laid on the middle frames between key frames. After finishing the key frames, the middle frames between them will be generated automatically by the computer and, then, the motion and change of the object are presented by the key frames and the middle frames between them.

Figure 6 Workspace of the robot

5 CONCLUSION
Physical models of special robot for hydraulic turbine repair and its runner are established, robot workspace is simulated dynamically, and its structure, dimension, and shape are tested directly by using software 3D Studio MAX. Thus, the designer is able to observe the result immediately, and modify according to it. It provides a more intuitive and accurate design method for improving and designing a more perfect special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair and lays down a solid foundation for developing this kind of robot in this country.

REFERENCES
4.3 Workspace simulation of special-purpose robot for hydraulic turbine repair
The main process of making animated simulation of working space of special robot for hydraulic turbine repair is shown in Figure 5. In the process, the attention should be paid hereditary relationship of motive between layers, setting of slide and rotation of every link of manipulation arm, and determination of motion range of every mobile link. The workspace of the robot is obtained by animated simulation as shown in Figure 6.
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