A numerical study on rock cutting by a TBM disc cutter using SPH code

Abstract

3 Senior researcher, Construction Equipment and Parts R&D group, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology ABSTRACT: Numerical simulation on rock cutting by a TBM disc cutter was carried out using SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) code. AUTODYN3D, a commercial software program based on finite element method, was used in this study. The three-dimensional geometry of a disc cutter and a rock specimen were modeled by Lagrange and SPH code respectively. The numerical simulation was carried out for Hwangdeung granite for 10 different cutting conditions. The results of the numerical simulation, i.e. the relation between cutter force and failure behavior, had a good agreement with those from LCM test. The cutter forces measured in the numerical simulation had 10% deviation from the LCM test results. Moreover, the optimum cutter spacing was almost identical with the experimental results. These results indicate that SPH code can be successfully used had applicability for simulation on rock cutting by a TBM disc cutter. However, further study on Lagrange-SPH coupled modelling would be necessary to reduce the computation time.