A Robot for Welding Repair of Hydraulic Turbine Blade

This paper proposed a scheme of using rail-free multifunctional robot in onsite repair of hydraulic turbine blade for large-scale axial-flow and Francis runners. The robot processes such functions as profile detection and measurement, air-gouging cleaning, grinding, welding and so on. The robot´s main body is composed of an all-position rail-free mobile platform and a multiple degree-of-freedom (DOF) manipulator. The mobile platform, on which the manipulator equipped with all kinds of exchangeable operating tools is mounted, adheres to the surface of the hydraulic turbine blade to be repaired. The operator can control the robot to carry out repairing work automatically through man-machine conversation interface of a monitoring system. Simulation of the process of welding repair using the robot was conducted. And prototypes of key components of the robot system were developed. Preliminary experimental results proved the feasibility of scheme of the repairing robot.