Development of a Novel TBM Tunnelling Test Platform and Its Application in Rock-Machine Interaction Analysis

Tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been widely used in rock engineering due to its advantages of safety, environmental protection and high efficiency. The fuzziness of the rock-machine interaction restricts the safe and efficient tunnelling of a TBM. It is necessary to develop a test platform to simulate both the rock conditions and TBM tunnelling conditions. This study aims to develop a novel TBM tunnelling test platform (TTTP) housed at Tsinghua University, China. The compositions and functions of the platform are illustrated. The TTTP reliability is verified through calibration experiments. The influences of advance rate and rotational speed on TBM tunnelling are studied. It shows that as the thrust increases, the required torque, advance rate and specific energy increase, the field penetration index and coarseness index decrease. The produced muck with a larger size is flatter. Conversely, the muck with a smaller size is compact. Chips with small size (regarded as powder) have the largest proportion. As the rotational speed increases, the required torque decreases, and the specific energy is constant. The torque, penetration rate and coarseness index present an obvious decreasing trend, while the advance rate and field penetration index show an increasing trend. In addition, as the rotational speed increases, the mass of the produced muck increases. These findings are consistent with the results in engineering practice. The developed platform provides a new way to study the rock-machine interaction in TBM tunnelling. A novel TBM tunnelling test platform is developed.The tunnelling process in different rock mass conditions, different loading conditions and different cutterhead design can be simulated.Influence of advance rate and rotational speed on TBM tunnelling is analyzed.The rock-machine interaction is realized using the tunnelling test platform.