Adaptable legged-magnetic adhesion tracked wheel robotic platform for misaligned mooring chain climbing and inspection
ISSN: 0143-991x
Article publication date: 11 October 2018
Issue publication date: 7 December 2018
Abstract
Purpose
Mooring chains used to stabilise offshore floating platforms are often subjected to harsh environmental conditions on a daily basis, i.e. high tidal waves, storms, etc. Therefore, the integrity assessment of chain links is vital, and regular inspection is mandatory for offshore structures. The development of chain climbing robots is still in its infancy due to the complicated climbing structure presented by mooring chains. The purpose of this paper is to establish an automated climbing technique for mooring chain inspection.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a Cartesian legged tracked-wheel crawler robot developed for mooring chain inspection. The proposed robot addresses the misalignment condition of the mooring chains which is commonly evident in in situ conditions.
Findings
The mooring chain link misalignment is investigated mathematically and used as a design parameter for the proposed robot. The robot is validated with laboratory-based climbing experiments.
Practical implications
Chain breaking can lead to vessel drift and serious damage such as riser rupture, production shutdown and hydrocarbon release. Currently, structural health monitoring of chain links is conducted using either remotely operated vehicles which come at a high cost or by manual means which increase the danger to human operators. The robot can be used as a platform to convey equipment, i.e. tools for non-destructive testing/evaluation applications.
Originality/value
This study has upgraded a previously designed magnetic adhesion tracked-wheel mooring chain climbing robot to address the misalignment issues of operational mooring chains. As a result of this study, the idea of an orthogonally placed Cartesian legged-magnetic adhesion tracked wheel robotic platform which can eliminate concerns related to the misaligned mooring chain climbing has been established.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research work has been funded by the London South Bank Innovation Centre (LSBIC), the National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) and TWI (NDT department), Cambridge. The authors express their sincere gratitude to the staff of LSBIC, TWI (NDT section) and Dr Jonathan Mark Selig for their support. The work is supported by InnovateUK with grant 102905 RIMCAW.
Citation
Dissanayake, M., Sattar, T.P., Lowe, S., Pinson, I. and Gan, T.-h. (2019), "Adaptable legged-magnetic adhesion tracked wheel robotic platform for misaligned mooring chain climbing and inspection", Industrial Robot, Vol. 45 No. 5, pp. 634-646. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-04-2018-0074
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited