Thermal-Mechanical Fragmentation of Hard Rock for Rapid Excavation.

摘要

This project was initially begun to determine techniques of combining thermal and mechanical methods of excavating hard rock,primarily for tunneling. Investigations to date have shown that rock excavation of tunnel faces with splitters is technically and economically feasible with two improvements:an impact hammer was added to the splitter system,and by using longer wedge and feathers,the speed of fracture was increased and broken fragments were sufficiently displaced so that they were no longer keyed in place and could be easily removed from the face. These concepts have 'opened the door'upon a number of basic research problems which must be solved in order to make the tools of optimum effectiveness for excavation systems. The research problems are amenable to solution.