Performance Assessment of Rock Cutting Tool

TBM excavation is very common these days and its market is expected to grow at 4–6% every year. In TBM excavation, estimation of cutting performance is of great importance in design stage as well as during construction. The performance is highly dependent on the geological conditions, i.e. characteristics of rock and discontinuities, and operational conditions, i.e. selection of cutter, cutting forces, cutter spacing, etc. For performance estimation, prediction models can be used in which index properties of rock and rock cutting database are correlated. Establishing the database surely takes much time and effort. And the models are subject to be modified when new sets of database are added. Other way of performance estimation is conducting a full scale linear cutting machine test. In the test, both rock and operational conditions can be easily controlled. However, linear cutting machine test is not often carried out because it requires large block of specimen, large stiff frame and precise control system. Therefore, numerical simulation can have benefits over experimental method and it recently provided decent outputs. In this presentation, recent researches on performance assessment of rock cutting including punch penetration test, full size linear cutting machine test, and numerical simulation are introduced.