Proceedings of the
9th International Conference of Asian Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology (ASPEN2022)
15 – 18 November 2022, Singapore
doi:10.3850/978-981-18-6021-8_OR-02-0212
Investigation on the Process Parameters of an Automated Wall Grinding Robotic System
Engineering Cluster, Singapore Institute of Technology, 10 Dover Drive, 138683, Singapore
ABSTRACT
In the construction industry, handheld grinders are typically used to grind-off various concrete wall surface defects such as cement drips, bulges and rough patches, prior to the skimming and painting processes. Grinding results in a very dusty environment, posing health and safety risks to the construction workers. There are solutions which aim to alleviate the strenuous polishing/grinding work through the use of supporting structures, and incorporating a vacuum system with the aim of minimizing the dust produced. However, the human worker is still vital to the operations. These concerns, coupled with a shortage of construction workers led to the need of an automated wall grinding robotic system to lower the risk of accidents and streamline construction processes, thereby saving time and cost. This paper first presents the design of a three degrees-of-freedom planar, parallel robot, based on the cable-driven parallel mechanism design and commercially available scaffolding structures with trolley wheels to create a reconfigurable wall polishing/grinding robotic system. One of the key enablers in transitioning from manual to automated grinding is the understanding of the appropriate grinding process parameters, in order to obtain an acceptable surface finishing. This is followed by the investigation of the key grinding process parameters, through the use of Design-of experiments to identify relevant and dominant parameters that are suitable for automated wall grinding. The identified grinding process parameters consisted of the normal grinding force, the grinding rotational speed and the type of grinding media. Based on an experimental test-bed that facilitated in the grinding process, the preliminary results indicate that the grinding of common defects requires a normal grinding force of approximately 30N, with a grinding speed of 9000 rpm and using the single-row diamond cup wheel as the grinding media.
Keywords: Cable-driven robots, Concrete Wall Grinding, Design of Experiments.
Engineering Cluster, Singapore Institute of Technology, 10 Dover Drive, 138683, Singapore
ABSTRACT
In the construction industry, handheld grinders are typically used to grind-off various concrete wall surface defects such as cement drips, bulges and rough patches, prior to the skimming and painting processes. Grinding results in a very dusty environment, posing health and safety risks to the construction workers. There are solutions which aim to alleviate the strenuous polishing/grinding work through the use of supporting structures, and incorporating a vacuum system with the aim of minimizing the dust produced. However, the human worker is still vital to the operations. These concerns, coupled with a shortage of construction workers led to the need of an automated wall grinding robotic system to lower the risk of accidents and streamline construction processes, thereby saving time and cost. This paper first presents the design of a three degrees-of-freedom planar, parallel robot, based on the cable-driven parallel mechanism design and commercially available scaffolding structures with trolley wheels to create a reconfigurable wall polishing/grinding robotic system. One of the key enablers in transitioning from manual to automated grinding is the understanding of the appropriate grinding process parameters, in order to obtain an acceptable surface finishing. This is followed by the investigation of the key grinding process parameters, through the use of Design-of experiments to identify relevant and dominant parameters that are suitable for automated wall grinding. The identified grinding process parameters consisted of the normal grinding force, the grinding rotational speed and the type of grinding media. Based on an experimental test-bed that facilitated in the grinding process, the preliminary results indicate that the grinding of common defects requires a normal grinding force of approximately 30N, with a grinding speed of 9000 rpm and using the single-row diamond cup wheel as the grinding media.
Keywords: Cable-driven robots, Concrete Wall Grinding, Design of Experiments.
