Theoretical prediction of wear of disc cutters in tunnel boring machine and its application

Predicting the cutter consumption and the exact time to replace the worn-out cutters in tunneling projects constructed with tunnel boring machine (TBM) is always a challenging issue. In this paper, we focus on the analyses of cutter motion in the rock breaking process and trajectory of rock breaking point on the cutter edge in rocks. The analytical expressions of the length of face along which the breaking point moves and the length of spiral trajectory of the maximum penetration point are derived. Through observation of rock breaking process of disc cutters as well as analysis of disc rock interaction, the following concepts are proposed: the arc length theory of predicting wear extent of inner and center cutters, and the spiral theory of predicting wear extent of gage and transition cutters. Data obtained from 5621 m-long Qinling tunnel reveal that among 39 disc cutters, the relative errors between cumulatively predicted and measured wear values for nine cutters are larger than 20%, while approximately 76.9% of total cutters have the relative errors less than 20%. The proposed method could offer a new attempt to predict the disc cutter's wear extent and changing time.