Theoretical and Experimental Study and Design Method of Blade Height of a Rotational-Flow Suction Unit in a Wall-Climbing Robot

Abstract

A wall-climbing robot that uses a rotational-flow suction unit to be non-contact-absorbed onto walls can climb rough walls and overstep obstacles. In the rotational-flow suction unit, the air driven by the blades rotates at a high speed within a chamber, thereby creating and maintaining a negative pressure distribution. This study is focused on the modeling and design of the blade height. First, a theoretical model of the rotation flow, containing two important parameters (i.e., blade height Hb and clearance h), was established and verified experimentally. Furthermore, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method was applied to illustrate the secondary flow relative to the blades, revealing that it gives rise to a nonlinear velocity distribution. It was found that an increase in the blade height greatly improves the F–h characteristics; in addition, the relationship between the power consumption and suction force (E˙−F curve) is mainly determined by the clearance h instead of the blade height Hb. Based on these findings, we propose a design method for determining the suitable blade height. According to the characteristic load curves of the suction units (i.e., the T–ω curves) and the motor characteristics, suitable blades can be selected to match the motor operation (i.e., nominal operating state).