TBM Disc Cutter Penetration And Structure Parameter Optimization Design Research

In recent years, with the increasingly rapid development of China’s national economy as well as the urgent demand of construction of underground space engineering and the improvement of the science and technology level, the basic infrastructure project construction is growing with each passing day. Tunnel Boring Macehine (TBM) is widely used in the underground engineering constructions, such as railway tunnel, municipal pipelines, irrigation and west-east natural gas transmission project and so on. More and more domestic design and manufacture is appearing in our country, especially the design and production localization of the cutterhead and tools of TBM.Disc cutter is an important tool of TBM for breaking the rock during excavating tunnel, its crushing efficiency and load directly impacts on the progress and cost of construction. On the basis of reading a large number of domestic and foreign literatures and analysis of the disc cutter and rock interaction mechanism, it is concluded that penetration is the most important factor which influences disc cutter design. Furthermore, penetration and disc cutter structure parameter optimization design of TBM are studied. The main researches of this paper can be summarized as follows:(1)The finite element model of loading serially on two disc cutters has been established by ABAQUS, the numerical simulation has been carried out and cutting phenomenon is analyzed. Then the specific energy consumption of disc cutters is calculated and a curve is fitted. According to the principle of minimum specific energy consumption, the optimization penetration of disc cutters is determined. The accuracy and feasibility of the numerical simulation method is verified by the cutting experiment and engineering application.(2) Genetic Algorithm is used to optimize the model built based on structural parameters of disc cutter as design variables and specific energy consumption as objective function. Taking TBM disc cutter and construction geological conditions used in the project in Gansu water diverting first-stage construction T9tunnel for example, the optimal value of the structural parameters is obtained under a specific cutter and rock materials. The result indicates that the optimization model of structural parameters of disc cutter and the Genetic Algorithm to solve this model are both feasible and effective. It can provide a basis for the actual TBM tunneling tool design.(3) By theoretical analysis, the disc cutter blade height is determined, and the other structural parameters of disc cutter ring are received. So the structure of disc cutter ring is designed. The magnitude of interference for disc cutter is initially identified. Through the accurate simulation by numerical method, the magnitude of interference of cutter ring and cutter body, magnitude of interference of cutter body and bearing outer ring and the thickness of the cutter ring impact on the strength of the components on the assembly. The orthogonal experiment is also designed, and then the influence of single factor and the two-factor interaction in the assembly strength is studied by fuzzy method.