Development of lab-scale rock drill apparatus for testing performance of a drill bit

• DOI: 10.1007/s12541-015-0185-z
• Publication Date: 2015-06-23T14:52:58Z
• Authors: Chang-Heon Song; Ki-Beom Kwon; Min-Gi Cho; Joo-Young Oh; Dae-Young Shin; Jung-Woo Cho
• Keywords: Drill bit; Bit (key); Drilling engineering

This study experimentally validated the reliability of the lab-scale rock drill apparatus and investigated the effect of bit design factors on the performance of drilling. To test drilling efficiency of a drill bit, a testing system was designed and manufactured. Using the testing system, the drilling rates and specific energy of a conventional drill bit and newly proposed drill bit with different button arrangement were compared. The newly proposed model was tested to be superior in drilling performance than that of the conventional model. The testing system developed in this study could be used to predict and test the performance of newly developed drill bit models. Also, the system has to be improved further for measuring more accurate and quantitative data for future drill bit developments.