Modeling and Experiments of Spray System for Cable Painting Robot

Many cable-stayed bridges have been built in the world in the past decades,and cable-stayed structures have been adopted in many large constructions.The cable painting robot is safe and economically efficient for stay cable maintenance.In order to satisfy the need for spraying cables in high attitude,an automatic cable spray system for cable painting robots is presented in this paper.Using the β distribution,paint thickness distribution on a cylinder surface is modeled.The spray gun’s number,angle and movement are analyzed to get coat evenness.Then a robotic spray system engineering prototype has been developed,which includes a cable electric running climbing base,a spray cover,four airless spray guns and a pressurized paint container.Experiments indicate that four airless spray guns can guarantee good coat quality for general stay cables.The field tests have been successfully conducted on Nanpu Bridge,Shanghai.