Promising designs of cutting picks for shearers in potash mines

The potash industry sees its top priority as enhancement of efficiency of potassium– magnesium salt mining by means of reduction in energy cost of salt rock cutting and in percentage of waste rock in produced ore. A promising pathway of research is improvement of a rock cutting tool design, namely, substantiation of rational geometric parameters for head portions of cutting picks. Theoretically, potash ore cutting is a random multi-factor process describable with statistical characteristics which are quantifiable through experimental research, for instance, laboratory bench-scale testing. The authors have designed a test bench and describe a procedure for determining forces and energy indicators of rock cutting with a single pick. Aimed to reduce loading of the test bench, it is justified to use a model material which is analogous to potash ore in terms of fracture pattern and represents gypsum slabs. The article describes the bench testing results of cutting the model material with a single pick. The test results made it possible to determine the average cutting forces on the single pick and the specific fracture energy as functions of the depth of cut and cutting pitch in the events of successive and checkerboard patterns of cutting. The rational geometric parameters of cutting picks, such that provided an observable decrease in the cutting force and specific energy in cutting the model material blocks with a single picks, were determined.

Gribov D. S., Sitnikov D. A., Shishlyannikov D. I. Promising designs of cutting picks for shearers in potash mines. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2025;(11):99-111. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2025_11_0_99.

The study was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Project No. FSNM-2023-0005.

D.S. Gribov, Head of the Mining Department, JSC «VNII Galurgii», 190103, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: dmitriy.gribov@mail.ru,
D.A. Sitnikov¹, Graduate Student, e-mail: stdm2023@mail.ru,
D.I. Shishlyannikov¹, Dr. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, Professor, e-mail: dish844@gmail.com,
¹ Perm National Research Polytechnic University, 614990, Perm, Russia.

D.S. Gribov, e-mail: dmitriy.gribov@mail.ru.

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