Characteristics of different rocks cut by helical cutting mechanism

To research the loading characteristic of rocks with different structures cut by helical cutting mechanism (HCM), three different structures of rock (hard-soft-hard rock, soft-hard rock and soft-hard-soft rock) were built. And each type model was further divided into three types when the experiments were carried out. To reduce the errors of cutting load caused by manually configured rock in each test, the cutting load of soft rock was taken as a benchmark, and the differences of the cutting load of the different structures of rocks and the soft rock were used to reflect the cutting load change rules of the HCM. The results indicate that, the cutting load of only the HCM top cutting hard rock is larger than that of only the HCM bottom cutting hard rock for dextral HCM, and the cutting load fluctuation is larger, too. However, when the top and the bottom of the HCM cutting hard rock simultaneously, its cutting load is the largest, but the cutting load fluctuation is the least. And the HCM cutting load increment is increased linearly with the increase of rock compressive strength. The HCM cutting load increment is increased exponentially with the increase of hard rock cutting thickness.