Design and implementation of a magnetic suction fan tower inspection robot

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to design a new type of magnetic suction wall-climbing robot suitable for the wall inspection of wind turbine towers to solve the problems in manual maintenance tasks. Design/methodology/approach By analyzing the shortcomings of existing wall-climbing robots, a magnetic suction integrated wheel structure is designed to effectively combine the adsorption structure and transmission structure. To enable the robot to adapt to the curvature of the wall surface of a wind turbine tower, a passive adaptive curvature structure is designed. The effects of the air gap, the thickness of the wheel plates on both sides, the size of permanent magnets and the size of aluminum rings on the adsorption force are studied. Through mechanical model analysis under different instability conditions, the magnetic circuit of the magnetic wheel is optimized and designed. Findings Applying the wall-climbing robot to engineering practice, experiments have shown that the developed wall-climbing robot can move safely and stably on the wall of the wind turbine tower. The robot can also carry a load of 20 kg, and the designed adaptive structure can cause the magnetic wheel to deflect up to 20° relative to the vehicle body, fully meeting the curvature requirements of the minimum diameter end of the wind turbine tower. Originality/value This paper proposes a magnetic suction integrated wheel structure through analysis of the working environment. And the parameters affecting the magnetic wheel adsorption performance were optimized. Meanwhile, a passive adaptive wind turbine tower curvature structure was proposed.