The surface material of marine ship hulls suffers degradation by slurry erosion because of the impact of sands or solid particles in seawater. When the ship’s moving speed increases, pressure is changed suddenly and cavitation erosion will occur. Therefore, in the ocean, the corrosion of the surface material of the ship hulls is a combined damage in a slurry erosion and cavitation erosion states. An experimental device, for the combined wear, capable of simulating the above working conditions is designed and manufactured. A combined wear test of various materials (Q235, DH32, and NM360 steels) is conducted. The results show that cutting furrows of the slurry erosion, pinholes of the cavitation erosion, holes of electrochemical corrosion, and their combined effect increase the material wear rates and areas. Ductile materials of high strength have less slurry and cavitation damage, and more corrosion damage. For ductile materials of low strength, slurry and cavitation wear play an important role. When the slurry impact speed is increased, the wear degree of materials is also increased. This experimental setup for the combined wear provides a strong support for the development of wear-resistant materials for ship hulls and the structural optimization of ship hulls.

Magnetically controlled capsule robots are predominantly used in the diagnosis and treatment of the human gastrointestinal tract. In this study, based on the permanent magnet method, magnetic driving and fluid measurement systems for in-pipe capsule robots were established. Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and particle image velocimetry (PIV), the fluid velocity and vorticity in the pipe of the capsule robot were calculated and measured. The running characteristics of the capsule robot were numerically analyzed in the curved pipe and the peristaltic flow. Furthermore, the range and variance method of orthogonal design was used to analyze the influence of four typical parameters (namely, pipe diameter, robotic translational speed, robotic rotational speed, and fluid viscosity) on the three operating performance indicators of the capsule robot (namely, the forward resistance of the robot, fluid turbulent intensity near the robot, and maximum fluid pressure to the pipe wall). In this paper, the relative magnitude and significance of the influence of each typical parameter on different performance indicators of the robot are presented. According to the different performance requirements of the robot, the different four parameter combinations are optimized. It is hoped that this work provides a reference for the selection of the appropriate mucus, translational speed, and rotational speed of the robot when it is working in pipes with different diameters.

SUMMARY A novel micro in-pipe robot using an internally threaded profile for propulsion is proposed in this paper, and the dynamic model of the robot in the turbulent liquid pipeline is established, and the computational fluid dynamics method is used to solve the influence of environmental parameters and operating parameters on the robotic performance. By the orthogonal experimental optimization method, the optimal inner spiral structural parametrical combination is obtained. According to the working principle of the inner spiral robot, an inner spiral driving device is designed and fabricated, and the running experiment in the pipeline full of 201 methyl silicone oil verifies the feasibility of the proposed robot. Adopting the pulsating blood flow function as the inlet condition, in a pulsating period, the robotic performance is numerically analyzed.

An interventional robot is a means for vascular diagnosis and treatment, and it can perform dredging, releasing drug and operating. Normal hemodynamic indicators are a prerequisite for the application of interventional robots. The current hemodynamic research is limited to the absence of interventional devices or interventional devices in fixed positions. Considering the coupling effect of blood, vessels and robots, based on the bi-directional fluid–structure interaction, using the computational fluid dynamics and particle image velocimetry methods, combined with the sliding and moving mesh technologies, we theoretically and experimentally study the hemodynamic indicators such as blood flow lines, blood pressure, equivalent stress, deformation and wall shear stress of blood vessels when the robot precesses, rotates or does not intervene in the pulsating blood flow. The results show that the intervention of the robot increase the blood flow rate, blood pressure, equivalent stress and deformation of the vessels by 76.4%, 55.4%, 76.5%, and 346%, respectively. The operating mode of the robot during low-speed operation has little impact on the hemodynamic indicators. Using the methyl silicone oil as the experimental fluid, the elastic silicone pipe as the experimental pipe, and the intervention robot having a bioplastic outer shell, the velocity of the fluid around the robot is measured on the developed experimental device for fluid flow field in a pulsating flow when the robot runs. The experimental results are similar to the numerical results. Our work provides an important reference for the hemodynamic study and optimization of the mobile interventional devices.

Minimally invasive surgery is a developing direction of modern medicine. With the successful development of controllable capsule endoscopies, capsule robots are very popular in the field of gastrointestinal medicine. At present, the study of intestinal robots is aimed at the pipeline environment of a single-phase liquid flow. But there exist food residues (i.e. solid particles) or liquid foods in the actual intestine, so intestinal fluid should be liquid–solid or liquid–liquid two-phase mixed fluid. For inner spiral capsule robots with different internal diameters and outer spiral capsule robots, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, the operational performance indicators (i.e. axial thrust force, circumferential resisting moment and maximum pressure to pipeline wall) of spiral capsule robots are numerically calculated in the liquid–solid or liquid–liquid two-phase mixed fluid. By the orthogonal experimental optimization method, the optimum design of spiral capsule robots is obtained in the liquid–solid mixed fluid. The experimental verification has been also carried out. The results show that in the liquid–solid two-phase fluid, the axial thrust force and circumferential resisting moment of the spiral capsule robots decrease with the increase of the size or concentration of solid particles. In the same liquid–solid or liquid–liquid mixed fluid, the operational performance indicators of outer spiral robots are much higher than those of inner spiral robots, and the operational performance indicators of inner spiral robots with bigger internal diameters are higher than those with smaller internal diameters. Adding solid particles of high concentration in the pipeline containing liquid will reduce the drive performance of spiral capsule robots, but adding another liquid of high viscosity will improve the drive performance of spiral capsule robots.

Through the combination of experimental measurement and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) method, the fluid flow characteristics in the pipe of magnetic capsule robot for intestinal tract are studied. The PIV (particle imaging velocimetry) system is used to measure the fluid flow field around the magnetic-controlled capsule robot under certain translational and rotational speeds, and the rich flow field information (streamline, velocity, and vorticity) is obtained. At the same time, the CFD software is used to calculate the corresponding flow field and the force acting on the capsule robot, and the calculated value is basically consistent with the experimental value. The results show that, driven by the external permanent magnet, the magnetic capsule robot makes corresponding precession movement in the pipe filled with silicone oil, and the movement track is wavy. When the pipe diameter is increased, the fluid streamline around the capsule robot is more stable, the vorticity value is smaller, the resistance and resisting moment of the capsule robot in the forward direction become smaller. The PIV measurement method and CFD method used in this paper can be applied to the fluid flow field measurement and mechanical analysis of the smaller size capsule robot in the liquid environment.