Study on the Design and Simulation of Rotary Excavator Arms

Traditional excavator arms often face limitations when excavating power tunnels, particularly regarding upward and downward excavation, slag scraping, tunnel profile shaping, and vault excavation of shallow underground tunnels. To address these challenges, in this paper, the D-H method and Jacobi matrix method in spatial mechanics are utilized to establish the coordinate system and mechanical simulation model of rotary excavator arms in ADAMS software. As a result, the maximum force and arm posture of the rotary excavator arm under five dangerous working conditions are obtained. Additionally, finite element simulation studies of dangerous working conditions are conducted using Abaqus2021 software. The simulation results indicate that the strength of the rotary excavator arm meets design requirements, with the maximum stress of 341 MPa at the bucket pin joint during conventional loading, and the maximum stress of 459 MPa at the end of the arm under lateral load. Finally, the production and manufacturing of the rotating excavator arm prototype are completed, and reliability tests for upward and downward excavation, as well as measurements of the operational range for left and right lateral excavation and upward scooping, are conducted. The results confirm that the research fulfills the design criteria.