Study on mesoscopic adhesion characteristics of deep-sea sediment for self-cleaning mechanism of bionic grouser

Deep-sea soil adhering to the grouser of mining machines may decrease mining efficiency. To realize the self-cleaning function of grouser, this paper proposes a bionic corrugated grouser. A small soil groove cutting model is established based on the adhesion characteristics of deep-sea sediments and the theory of the Discrete Element Method (DEM). Using Hertz-Mindlin with JKR model to express the adhesive properties of soil. Simulation results show that the bionic grouser can significantly reduce the adhesion force with soil particles. When the waveform function of the bionic grouser is Y = 2sin(X/10), the surface adhesion force is the smallest, and it has the best self-cleaning effect. The experiment of cutting deep-sea soil with a self-designed bulldozer verifies the correctness of the conclusions obtained from the simulation. To further improve the self-cleaning performance of grouser, nano-silica materials were used to modify the surface, and indoor traction tests obtained positive results.