Mobile technology module for pipeline maintenance: Design and simulation

Abstract

Modern pipeline communications require periodic maintenance for various purposes, such as gas, oil, water station pipes, chimneys, and other pipelines. Such maintenance involves transport devices that operate autonomously inside pipelines, including in vertical tubes, and perform various technological operations, such as diagnosing the internal state of pipes, cleaning them, applying protective coatings, machining, welding, and the like processes. The article proposes a fundamentally new design of a mobile technological module for servicing the internal surfaces of pipelines. The main advantage of the proposed module is its ability to move along vertical pipelines of various diameters while overcoming the gravitational load. This effect is achieved by using elastic chambers in the module design. When compressed air or pressurized liquid is supplied to them, they periodically fix the module on the internal surfaces of the pipelines. The main economic effect is to reduce the cost of preventive maintenance to maintain the interior surfaces of vertical pipelines, that is, without their dismantling and with the simultaneous possibility of adapting transport devices to the pipeline topology. The article offers a description of the new design of the technological module and analytical dependencies for calculating the design parameters of the module. The results of modeling the parameters of the module are presented.