Analysis of cutting resistance of single rake tooth in saturated clay and unsaturated clay

It is a common method of dredging engineering to use a rake suction vessel to dig sand and extract clay. Aiming at the cutting problem, the CEL finite element method is used to study the interaction between the cutter teeth and clay. And the relationship between the cutting resistance and the moving displacement of the cutter teeth is obtained. The feasibility and accuracy of the numerical method to analyze the problem of cutting clay with the cutter was verified. Furthermore, the influence of the clay modulus of elasticity, cutting angle, cutting speed and cutting depth on the cutting resistance limit was quantitatively analyzed for the saturated and unsaturated clay. And the influence degree of the above cutting parameters was discussed. The results show that the cutting resistance limit in horizontal direction increases with the increase of clay modulus of elasticity, cutting angle and cutting depth. And the difference between the cutting resistance limit in saturated clay and unsaturated clay increases with the increase of the above parameters. The cutting resistance limit in the vertical direction basically increases with the increase of clay modulus of elasticity and cutting depth, and then increases inversely with the increase of cutting angle. Moreover, with the increase of cutting depth, the difference between the cutting resistance limit values of saturated clay and unsaturated clay becomes larger. In addition, the cutting resistance limit in saturated clay is basically unchanged with the increase of cutting speed, while the cutting resistance limit in unsaturated clay is basically increasing with the increase of cutting speed. These results can provide beneficial reference for subsequent engineering application.