Experimental study of the wheeled capsule motion inside hydraulic pipeline

Abstract

The wheeled capsule hydraulic transportation is a new technique for transporting materials. In this technique, the wheeled capsule, which is designed to contain materials, is one of the core components. In this study, a new type of wheeled capsule structure was first designed, and then experiments were conducted at seven water discharges, eight wheeled capsule dimensions, and eight mass of transporting materials in the pipe with an inner diameter of 100 mm. The pipe in study was divided into nine parts, and the speed of the wheeled capsule in each pipeline section was analyzed. The results showed that the speeds of the wheeled capsules in different sections of the pipeline did not change significantly and basically fluctuate near the overall average speed and the maximum relative fluctuation value was ⩽ 8.6%. Therefore, the overall average speed of the wheeled capsule can be used to analyze the motion characteristics of the wheeled capsule. The average speed of the wheeled capsule increased with increasing water discharge, diminished with increasing mass of transporting materials, increased with increasing length of the wheeled capsule, and increased with increasing diameter of the wheeled capsule. The empirical formula of the average speed of the wheeled capsule with different water discharges, wheeled capsule dimensions and mass of transporting materials was obtained by the nonlinear regression method and can be expressed as v = 0 . 011 ( 0 . 001 dL / 4 L + d ) 0 . 5686 ( Q / 0 . 9 π D υ ) 0 . 4606 ( 0 . 001 M ) − 0 . 1646 − 2 . 7740 . The empirical formula was experimentally validated. The maximum relative error did not exceed 7.05%, proving that the empirical formula of the average speed of the wheeled capsule was rational. The results of this study can provide a theoretical basis for designing the structure of the wheeled capsule.