A New Design of Horizontal Electro-Vibro-Impact Devices

This paper presents a development in design, mathematical modeling, and experimental study of a vibro-impact moling device, which was invented by the author before. A vibratory unit deploying electromechanical interactions of a conductor with oscillating magnetic field has been realized and developed. The combination of resonance in an RLC circuit including a solenoid is found to create a relative oscillatory motion between the metal bar and the solenoid. This results in impacts of the solenoid on an obstacle block, which causes the forward motion of the system. Compared to the former model which employs impact from the metal bar, the improved rig can offer a higher progression rate of six times when using the same power supply. The novel geometrical arrangement allows for future optimization in terms of system parametric selection and adaptive control. This implies a very promising deployment of the mechanism in ground moling machines as well as other self-propelled mobile systems. In this paper, insight to the design development based on physical and mathematical models of the rig is presented. The coupled electromechanical equations of motion then are solved numerically, and a comparison between experimental results and numerical predictions is presented.