Assembly Deviation Analysis of New Integrated TBM Disc Cutter and Design of the Supporting Cutter-Changing Robot End-Effector

Abstract

At present, the replacement of disc cutters of the tunnel boring machine (TBM) is a very important and difficult manual operation. It is meaningful to study disc cutters of TBM replacement with a robot. In this paper, the machining and assembly deviation of the new integrated disc cutter developed by our research group is modeled and analyzed using the improved Jacobian–Torsor model, and the analysis results are verified by experiments. On this basis, aiming at the possible radial deviation and angle deviation in the working process of a robot replacing TBM disc cutters, a cutter-changing robot end-effector composed of a guiding mechanism, a flexible connecting mechanism and a universal wrench is designed for the disassembly and assembly of the new integrated disc cutter, and scaled-down models were made for the experiment. The test results show that when there is a radial deviation of 19.21% or an angle deviation of 11° between the fastening bolt and the end-effector of the robot, the robot end-effector can complete the docking with the fastening bolt.