This research began in response to the need to want to scrub and clean rather than simply rinse with water in the shower. This robot floats on the water, scrubs the bathtub wall while following the wall, cleans the downside gradually along with the drop of the water level, changes the attitude automatically, and then cleans the bottom face. This mechanism features the anti-submerged propellers with movable and washable functions. That is, simple and inexpensive are the selling points.

FSI simulation: 

Model: three rigid bodies

CFD: unsteady, laminar, gas-liquid two phase flow (VOF), overset mesh, moving boundary condition


Attitude stability experiment:

Wall scrubbing motion check:

References:

Keisuke ISHIGAMI, Chihiro MASUDA, Koki KIKUCHI, Development of a Bathtub-scrubbing Robot (Performance Evaluation of Driving and ScrubbingScrew), JSDE, The 5th International Conference on Design Engineering and Science: ICDES2020, (Nov. 2020), online.

. Koki KIKUCHI, Chihiro MASUDA, Keisuke ISHIGAMI, Development of a Bathtub-scrubbing Robot (Design of a Wall/Bottom Surface Locomotion Mechanism), JSDE, The 5th International Conference on Design Engineering and Science: ICDES2020, (Nov. 2020), online.