Design and Experiment of Dry-Ice Cleaning Mechanical Arm for Insulators in Substation

Polluted flashover of insulators has always been a crucial hidden peril to the reliability of substation for supplying electricity. At present, the insulator of the substation is mainly cleaned manually in the case of power-cut, which greatly affects the reliability of power supply and operation safety. In this paper, an insulator dry-ice mechanical arm capable of electrified working is proposed. Under the regular operation of the power grid, the operator can remotely control the mechanical arm to clean the insulators of the substation with high-pressure gas mixed with dry-ice particles. This will not only ensure the regular operation of the power grid, but also greatly protects the safety of personnel. Considering the operation environment and high-voltage working conditions of the substation, the mechanism and control system of the dry-ice cleaning mechanical arm are designed, and the motion analysis, simulation, and strength analysis of the mechanical arm are carried out. Finally, the high-voltage-insulation test of the mechanical arm and the actual operation of the substation insulator cleaning working test are carried out, which proves that this mechanical arm can adapt to the operation environment of the substation, and the working is stable, safe, and reliable, which has an important application value to solve the problem in the cleaning of the substation insulator and other electrified equipment.