Investigation into the Electrohydraulic Synchronous Motion Control of a Thrust System for a Tunnel Boring Machine

Abstract

The thrust system of a tunnel boring machine plays a crucial role by driving the machine ahead and supporting the gripper shoes stably. A thrust hydraulic control system, assembled with a proportional flow control valve and a pressure relief valve, is established with system operating parameters. The mathematical model of a thrust electrohydraulic system is presented. To improve the control characteristics of the thrust system, a self-tuning fuzzy PID controller was introduced in synchronization motion control situations. To attain the best control parameters, three synchronization motion control systems were used to control the thrust propel cylinders. Tests on a Ø2.5 m scaled TBM test rig were carried out to verify the capabilities of the ISCS, SRSCS and CRSCS. Comparative tests were conducted, and the results showed that the thrust system adopting SRSCS achieved the least oscillation and the quickest response. The steady-state displacement error decreased by about 33.3% in contrast to the ISCS and CRSCS.

Load characterization of the main bearing of a large tunnel boring machine based on dynamic characteristic parameters

“…Via the establishment of a group-adjustable thrust hydraulic system, the change of the hydraulic cylinder thrust has been used to reflect the sudden change of the external load. [24][25][26] Wang 27 and Wu et al 28 proposed an electrohydraulic control system to accurately control the attitude of the shield in composite geology, and the strategy of the least oscillation and quickest response, as well as the performances of different thrust systems, were evaluated. Tourajizadeh and Gholami, 29 Valle´s, 30 and Chen et al 31 regarded the current 3-PRS parallel manipulator model as having the same mechanism, and the kinematic parameters could be calibrated through a responding algorithm.…”