Response law of rock-cutterhead interaction in intact sandstone through TBM tunnelling test

Abstract

The unclear response law of rock-cutterhead interaction seriously limits the tunnel boring machine (TBM) efficiency. Various influencing factors make it difficult to illustrate the law using the TBM tunnelling results in the field. In the present study, we develop a novel TBM tunnelling test platform (DGTBM-A) to analyze rock-cutterhead interaction. The components and functions of the platform are introduced. The cubic sandstone specimens (500 mm ×500 mm × 500 mm) with three distinct uniaxial compressive strengths (low (24.94 MPa), medium (61.22 MPa), and high (95.04 MPa) are used for TBM tunnelling test. The effects of cutterhead thrust, rotational speed and rock strength on the rock-cutterhead interaction are examined. Key tunnelling parameters, TBM performance indices, and rock muck characteristics are analyzed to reflect their effects. The findings revealed significant impacts of cutterhead thrust, rotational speed and rock strength on torque, advance rate, penetration rate, specific energy, and field penetration index. Additionally, the characteristics of the produced rock muck varied with the applied tunnelling parameters, providing insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of rock breaking. Correlations between the TBM performance indices and the influencing factors are established. The results contribute to a better understanding of the mechanics involved in TBM tunnelling in sandstone, aiding in optimizing operational parameters for improved performance and cost-efficiency in engineering practice.

Keywords

Tunnel boring machine / Rock-cutterhead interaction / Tunnelling test platform / Sandstone

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Weiqiang Xie: Methodology, Writing - original draft, Conceptualization, Funding acquisition. Xiaoli Liu: Project administration, Supervision, Writing - review & editing, Funding acquisition. Caifeng Zhang: Validation, Investigation, Resources. Xiaoxiong Zhou:. Jian Chen: Visualization, Software, Validation.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Yunlong Lake Laboratory of Deep Underground Science and Engineering (Grant No. 104023005), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52308403), and the State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering (Grant Nos. sklhse-TD-2024-D02 and sklhse-2024-D-04) for funding provided to this work.

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