Proposal of Duct Cleaning Unit Using Planetary Gear Mechanism for Kitchen Ventilation Ducts and Design of Grease Cleaning Brush for Square Ducts: Model Design and Simulation of Effective Cleaning Range

In this paper, we propose a kitchen ventilation ducts cleaning robot that can clean ducts of various shapes and sizes, such as round and square ducts. To reduce the risk of duct fires, this study aims to develop a cleaning robot that cleans grease in kitchen ventilation ducts. In our previous studies, we focused on a planetary gear mechanism as a cleaning unit using brushes. The cleaning performance of a prototype was evaluated by a cleaning experiment of round ducts with grease. However, to clean square ducts, it was necessary to develop brush modules according to the shape of a square duct considering the characteristics of grease. This paper proposes a cleaning unit to clean both round and square ducts and a modeling method of brush module shape and brushes arrangement for square ducts based on the grease characteristics. Furthermore, by simulating the effective cleaning range of the brushes fixed to the brush module, it was found that proposed brush module can clean square duct while exerting an effective pushing force for cleaning. Therefore, the proposed modeling method of a brush module is expected to reduce the torque required for cleaning and improve the grease adsorption performance. In addition, the results of the simulation show the feasibility of cleaning square ducts by a duct cleaning unit using a planetary gear mechanism.