Cutting Tools Wear in Soft Ground Tunneling: Field and Experimental Insights

This study is an attempt to design and manufacture a tunnel boring machine (TBM) simulator to better understand the interaction between soil and cutting tools, due to the lack of an accepted method for this issue. In this paper, Sahand Soil Abrasion Test (SSAT) is introduced, which is built by the Sahand University of Technology. The experimental and real results of tool wear are presented. The results firstly demonstrate that the cutting tools wear in the coarse-grained soils can be less than in the fine-grained ones in the real conditions. However, in the soils with fine grains higher than ۱۰%, the wear of cuttings tools increase in the laboratory condition when grading parameters increase. In soils with fine grains less than ۱۰%, the wear of tools decreases by increasing the grading parameters. Also the results reveal that the coefficient of gradation depend on the amount of silt and clay in the soil samples. The investigations show that sorting is another good criterion for investigating the power of soil abrasively. Furthermore, it indicates that the cutting tools wear increases when the moisture content of the soil structure in the dense condition approaches the optimal moisture content. Finally, the results indicate that the wear and torque of the cutterhead could be reduced by ۵۸% and ۳۴%, respectively, when the excavated materials have the appropriate conditioning.

کلیدواژه ها:

Wear ، Cutting tool ، Abrasion ، grading ، moisture