Mechanical excavators are preferred to conventional drilling and blasting as blasting poses
several regulatory and operational issues. The roadheader is a machine for excavating rock …

The secret to streamlined scheduling of mining and civil engineering projects is a solid
understanding of the basic concepts of rock cutting mechanics. Comparing theoretical …

Episodic debris flows scour the rock beds of many steepland valleys. Along recent debris-
flow runout paths in the western United States, we have observed evidence for bedrock …

Circular diamond saw of wear is affected by a range of factors. However, the principal factors
that require consideration in predicting wear rates are the type of diamond saw, the saw …

During automatic and intelligent cutting at the coal mining face, complex geological
conditions (fold structure, fault structure and magmatic intrusion) easily cause distinct …

Specific energy is defined as the amount of work required to break a unit volume of rock and
is used to predict the performance of mechanical miners. It is obtained from full-scale rock …

Determining tunnel stability is a key issue during preliminary site investigation. In contrast,
problems of excavatability have been largely ignored. While the choice of an economic …

Drilling and blasting is the most widely used excavation method in mining and tunnelling
especially in hard rock conditions. But in recent years, the application of roadheaders and …

As the use of mechanical excavation in tunneling and mining activities expands, so has the
use of disc cutters in various ground conditions. The impact of moisture content on rock …

Microwave pre-conditioning is considered to be the most promising complementary hard
rock cutting method, with a strong potential to improve the advance rate and profitability of …