Development and Performance Evaluation of an Integrated Disc Cutter System for TBMs

Changing the cutter is an essential procedure in tunnel boring machine (TBM) operations. The danger and low efficiency of manually replacing the disc cutter has led engineering equipment designers to study technologies to automate the changing of cutters. The key step is to design a new integrated disc cutter (simplifying the replacement process) to facilitate robot operation. Until now, the design and research of new integrated disc cutter systems has mainly relied on inspiration. In this paper, a solution space of a certain configuration of an integrated disc cutter system based on topology theory was designed. The evaluation system for the solution space was constructed by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the optimal scheme of the configuration was finally obtained. In addition, experiments and simulations show that the structural strength and anti-loosening performance of the new disc cutter system meet the engineering requirements. Application of topology theory and the new evaluation system provides useful theoretical analyses and guidance for the design of new cutter systems.