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Numerical simulation of impact on pneumatic DTH hammer percussive

drilling

Article  in  Journal of Earth Science · October 2009

DOI: 10.1007/s12583-009-0073-5

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Journal of Earth Science, Vol. 20, No. 5, p. 868–878, October 2009 ISSN 1674-487X
Printed in China
DOI: 10.1007/s12583-009-0073-5

Numerical Simulation of Impact on Pneumatic

DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling

Bu Changgen* (卜长根), Qu Yegao (瞿叶高), Cheng Zhiqiang (程志强), Liu Baolin (刘宝林)
School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China

ABSTRACT: The process of DTH (down-the-hole) hammer drilling has been characterized as a very
complex phenomenon due to its high nonlinearity, large deformation and damage behaviors. Taking
brittle materials (concrete, granite and sandstone) as impact specimens, the explicit time integration
nonlinear finite element code LS-DYNA was employed to analyze the impact process and the penetra-
tion boundary conditions of DTH hammer percussive drilling system. Compared with previous studies,
the present model contains several new features. One is that the 3D effects of DTH hammer drilling
system were considered. Another important feature is that it took the coupling effects of brittle materi-
als into account to the bit-specimen boundary of the drilling system. This distinguishes it from the tra-
ditional approaches to the bit-rock intersection, in which nonlinear spring models are usually imposed.
The impact forces, bit insert penetrations and force-penetration curves of concrete, granite and sand-
stone under DTH hammer impact have been recorded; the formation of craters and fractures has been
also investigated. The impact loads of piston-bit interaction appear to be relatively sensitive to piston
impact velocity. The impact between piston-bit interaction occurs at two times larger forces, whereas
the duration of the first impact doesn’t change with respect to the piston velocity. The material proper-
ties of impact specimen do not affect the first impact process between the piston and bit. However, the
period between the two impacts and the magnitudes of the second impact forces greatly depend on the
specimen material properties. It is found that the penetration depth of specimen is dependent on the
impact force magnitude and the macro-mechanical properties of the brittle materials.
KEY WORDS: pneumatic DTH hammer, percussive drilling, LS-DYNA, brittle material, impact
force-penetration curve.

INTRODUCTION When the DTH hammer works, it generates percussive

Pneumatic down-the-hole (DTH) hammer drill- force to the bit to impact and shatter the ground and
ing is a rotary percussive drilling technique widely the rotational torque rotates it to tear and cut the frag-
used in mining, exploration, water-well drilling, road ments whilst the thrust force keeps it in contact with
construction, and other drilling operations around the the ground during bit advancement. In the meantime,
world (Bu et al., 2006; Karanam and Misra, 1998). the drill cuttings and detritus in the form of fine parti-
cles and dust are brought from the hole to the ground
This study was supported by the National Natural Science surface via an air flushing medium as shown in Fig. 1.
Foundation of China (No. 50475056). This drilling technique has a major advantage in that it
*Corresponding author: bucg@cugb.edu.cn can rapidly and economically produce holes in hard
rocks for various construction and mining purposes.
Manuscript received February 2, 2009. In the pneumatic DTH hammer, a piston moving
Manuscript accepted June 22, 2009. with speed v0 collides with a drill bit. A stress wave
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 869

Fairhurst, 1972a, b, 1971a, b; Fairhurst, 1961). They

investigated in detail the energy transfer in percussive
drilling, and thrust force requirements and some
comments were done for the design of percussive
drilling systems. Lundberg (1985, 1982, 1973a, b) set
up the stress wave equations for the case of
top-of-the-hole rock drilling in which a short piston
strikes a long bar containing different cutter shapes,
and carried out detailed investigations on stress wave
mechanics of percussive drilling and developed a mi-
crocomputer simulation program. Microcomputer
simulation studies (Lundberg, 1985, 1982) of percus-
sive drilling systems have shown that the predicted
values of impact stress, coefficient of hammer restitu-
tion and forces acting on the rock agree well with
theoretical results. A similar approach was adopted by
Stock and Schad (1992) to estimate the stresses at the
interface between the tungsten-carbide inserts and the
drill-bit body. Nordlund (1989) also studied the effects
of the thrust force on percussive drilling using ex-
perimental data and Lundberg’s method. Chiang and
Elías (2000) developed a different method to solve the
impact of percussive drilling in terms of the impulse-
momentum principle, in which the solid bodies in
Figure 1. Typical structure of pneumatic DTH percussive drilling system were discretized into nodes
drilling system. and elements, and the corresponding impulse momen-
tum equations were applied iteratively assuming that a
then begins to propagate through the drill bit towards wave travels at the speed of sound in the medium.
the rock and backwards through the piston from the Generally, the previous published works on per-
impact plane. The front end of the stress wave eventu- cussive drilling system impact were based upon the
ally reaches the rock interface, where the tungsten solutions of the stress wave equation or the linear im-
carbide inserts mounted on the drill bit surface gener- pulse momentum principle. In these works, the
ate high point stresses. Depending on the drilling abil- rock-bit interaction is usually modeled by a nonlinear
ity of the rock, a certain amount of energy will be dis- spring, while the piston and the bit are often simplified
sipated by the rock fragmentation. The remaining en- as straight or cone-shaped bars. In fact, these simula-
ergy will be distributed among the piston, drill bit and tion methods make use of a force-penetration curve to
other DTH hammer components according to their model the rock-bit interaction, therefore, the validity
mass, stiffness and geometric properties. How the of the simulation results greatly depends on the avail-
wave propagates in the piston, bit, rock and other ability and accuracy of this curve (Chiang, 2004). For
components is of paramount importance in the impact this reason, many researchers have been active in de-
process of the DTH hammer percussive drilling. veloping better and simpler methods to obtain accu-
The mechanics of percussive drilling has been rate force-penetration curves in rocks and other mate-
analyzed numerically and experimentally since the rials (Chiang, 2004; Carlsson et al., 1990; Pang et al.,
early 1960s. The pioneering works on theoretical and 1989).
experimental studies on the percussive drilling of rock Actually, the piston and the bit in DTH hammer
were done by Hustrulid and Fairhurst (Hustrulid and are usually thick and short, and have complex geo-
870 Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin

metric shapes. These simplifications mentioned above THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

in 1D elastic stress wave models or impulse momen- METHOD FORMULATION
tum equations may bring great error to the results as LS-DYNA is used in the simulation of DTH
they ignore the wave propagation attenuation and dis- hammer percussive drilling system in the present
persion in piston and bit due to the radial inertia ef- study. This computer code performs nonlinear tran-
fects. Based on 3D axisymmetric finite element sient dynamic analysis of three-dimensional structures.
method, Lundberg and Okrouhlik (2006, 2001) inves- LS-DYNA has a wide variety of analysis capabilities
tigated the 3D effects on the efficiency of DTH ham- including a large number of material models, a variety
mer drilling process. Chiang and Elías (2008) devel- of contact modeling options, a library of beam, plate,
oped a more sophisticated finite element model to shell, and solid elements and robust algorithms for
simulate the energy transmission, the bit-rock interac- adaptively controlling the solution process (Hallquist,
tion, and the process of rock fragmentation in percus- 2003). In the solution process, stress wave propaga-
sive drilling. However, the effects on wave reflection tion and inertia effect are considered. Its principle al-
of local structures like spline and air slot are neglected gorithm adopts Lagrangian formulation.
in these models. Furthermore, it should be pointed out When a piston impacts a bit on a DTH hammer,
that bit-rock interaction conducted as a nonlinear their contact is assumed to have no friction. The gov-
spring is a quasi-static method based on the measure- erning equations for both bodies are the following.
ment of the penetration force on the rock, and can be Equation of mass conservation
used as just an approximation for those bits with one ρV=ρ0 (1)
or two inserts. For bits with multi-inserts in DTH where V represents the relative volume; ρ denotes the
hammers, the nonlinear spring parameters are difficult current density; and ρ0 denotes the reference density.
to be obtained. Hence, the 1D wave model is restricted Equation of momentum conservation
to the DTH hammer and has some limitations. There- σ ij , j + ρ fi = ρ ui (2)
fore, it is of great importance and interest to study the where σij,j represents the Cauchy stress; fi represents
percussive drilling process of DTH hammer in order the body force density; and üi denotes the acceleration.
to achieve a better understanding of the percussive Equation of energy conservation
drilling mechanism. E = Vsij εij − ( p + q )V (3)
Taking brittle materials (concrete, granite and
where εij and p denote the deviatoric stresses and
sandstone) as impact specimens, this work employs
hydrostatic pressure, respectively, as given in
the explicit time integration nonlinear finite element
sij = σ ij + ( p + q ) δ ij (4)
code LS-DYNA to analyze the impact and penetration
boundary conditions in pneumatic DTH hammer per- where q represents the bulk viscosity; δij denotes the
cussive drilling system. The force-penetration curves Kronecker delta (δij=1, if i=j; otherwise δij=0); and
of concrete, granite and sandstone under DTH ham- εij denotes the strain rate tensor
1 1
mer impact have been recorded and the formation of p = − σ ij δ ij − q = − σ kk − q (5)
3 3
the craters and fractures has been investigated. The
Based on the virtual work principle, equation (2) can
simulated force-penetration curve is in fact the indica-
be expressed as a weak form of equilibrium equation
tion of the propagation of cracks and the formation of
chips. According to the simulated results, it is believed v
( ) ( )
∫ ρ ui − σ ij , j − ρ f δ ui dv + ∫ σ ij n j − ti δ ui ds +
∫ (σ ij − σ ij )n jδ ui ds = 0
that this numerical simulation method will contribute + −
(6)
to an improved knowledge of the rock fragmentation
where δui fulfills all boundary conditions, and the in-
process in DTH hammer drilling, which will in turn
tegrations are over the current geometry. Application
help enhance mining and drilling efficiency through
of the divergence theorem gives
the improved design of percussive drilling tools and
equipment.
( )
∫v σ ijδ ui , j dv = ∫ σ ij n jδ ui ds + (7)
σ (
∫ ij ij j i
+
− σ −
n )δ u ds
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 871

and noting that inserts are listed in Table 1.

(σ ijδ ui ) , j −σ ij , jδ ui = σ ijδ ui, j (8)
Equivalent Strength Model of Brittle Specimen
leads to the weak form of the equilibrium equation
To fully describe the dynamic effect of brittle
δπ = ∫ ρ uiδ ui dv + ∫ σ ijδ ui , j dv − ∫ ρ fiδ ui dv −
v v v specimens within the impact procedure, several mod-
∫v tiδ ui ds = 0 (9) els have been implemented in LS-DYNA, designed
If the finite element technique is interconnected using for special purposes such as damage, effect of strain
a matrix form, Equation (9) becomes rate and cracks. This investigation employs results
m from the perforation simulations with the LS-DYNA
⎧ ρ N t Nadv +
⎪ ∫vm ∫vm B σdv ⎫⎪
t
n
and the “Johnson-Holmsquist concrete” material
∑⎨ ⎬ =0 (10)
m =1 ⎪ − ∫ ρ N bdv − ∫
t
N t td s ⎪ model (Holmquist et al., 1993) to forecast brittle
⎩ vm ∂b1 ⎭
where N is an interpolation matrix; σ is the stress vec- Table 1 Material parameters of piston, bit and tungsten
tor; B is the strain-displacement matrix; a is the nodal carbide inserts
acceleration vector; b is the body force load vector;
and t is applied traction load. Part in DTH Density Modulus of Poisson
3
The equation is integrated in time and is applied hammer ρ (kg/m ) elasticity E (GPa) ratio
to evaluate the equation of state and for a global en- Piston 7 850 206.0 0.3
ergy balance. Bit 7 850 206.0 0.3
Tungsten 14 500 588.0 0.22
FINITE ELEMENT MODEL OF DTH HAMMER carbide inserts
PERCUSSIVE DRILLING SYSTEM
For numerical simulation and evaluation of the
impact process of DTH hammer, a pneumatic hammer
JW150 manufactured in Jiaxing City, China, was se-
lected as an example as shown in Fig. 2.

Percussive Drilling System of DTH Hammer

As shown in Fig. 3, the analysis model of JW150
DTH hammer percussive drilling system is composed
of piston, bit, and rock. The piston mass is given an
initial velocity v0 and forced down to strike the anvil
of bit which is in contact with the fixed specimen.

Material Models and Finite Element Discretization

In this analysis, the piston, bit and tungsten car-
bide inserts were assumed as isotropic elastic materi-
als, defined as *MAT_ELASTIC in LS-DYNA. The
material parameters of piston, bit and tungsten carbide

Figure 3. Diagram showing the analysis model of

Figure 2. Diagram showing the structure model of
JW150 DTH hammer.
JW150 DTH hammer.
872 Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin

specimen behavior under DTH hammer impact.

Figure 4 illustrates a general overview of the
“Johnson-Holmsquist Concrete” mode. The equivalent
strength component of the model is given by
( )
σ * = ⎡⎣ A (1 − D ) + BP* N ⎤⎦ ⋅ 1 + C ln ε* (11)
The normalized equivalent stress is given by
*
σ =σ/f’C, where σ represents the actual equivalent
stress; and f’C denotes the quasi-static uniaxial com-
pressive strength; P* denotes the normalized pressure,
shown as P*=P/f’C; ε* denotes the dimensionless
strain rate, given by ε* = ε ε0 ; ε represents the ac-
tual strain rate; ε0 = 1.0 s −1 represents the reference
strain rate; D (0≤D≤1) denotes the damage parameter,
and the normalized largest tensile strength is given by Figure 5. Diagram showing damage failure model
T*=T/f’C, where T represents the maximum tensile of brittle specimen. EFmin. minimum plastic strain
stress. Additionally A, B, N, C, and Smax denote the of material fracture.
material parameters, respectively as normalized cohe-
sive strength, normalized pressure hardening coeffi- strain increment and plastic volumetric strain incre-
cient, pressure hardening exponent, strain rate coeffi- ment, respectively, during one cycle of integral com-
cient and normalized maximum strength. putation. The equation
f p = ε pf + μpf = D1 ( P* + T * )
D2
(13)
represents the plastic strain to fracture under a con-
stant pressure, where D1 and D2 represent damage
constants.

Equation of State (EOS)

EOS describes the relationship between hydro-
static pressure and volume. The loading and unloading
process of brittle specimen can be divided into three
response regions, as depicted in Fig. 6. The first zone
is the linear elastic zone, arising at P≤Pcrush, where the
material is in elastic state. The elastic bulk modulus is
given by k=Pcrush/μcrush, where Pcrush and μcrush repre-
Figure 4. Diagram showing the equivalent strength sent the pressure and volumetric strain arising in a
model. uniaxial compression test. Within the elastic zone, the
loading and unloading equation of state is given by
Accumulated Damage Failure Model P=kμ (14)
The accumulated damage failure model for brittle where μ=ρ/ρ0–1; ρ denotes the current density; and ρ0
specimen is illustrated in Fig. 5. The “Johnson- denotes the reference density. The second zone arises
Holmquist concrete” model considered, owing to plas- at Pcrush<P<Plock, where the material is in the plastic
tic volumetric strain. The damage model is written as transition state. In this area, the brittle specimen inte-
Δε p + Δμp rior voids gradually reduce in size as the pressure and
D=∑ f (12) plastic volumetric strain increase. The unloading curve
ε p + μpf
is solved by the difference from the adjacent regions.
where Δεp and Δμp represent the equivalent plastic
The third area defines the relationship for fully dense
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 873

Table 2 Material parameters of brittle specimens for the

DTH hammer impact analysis

Material Material Brittle specimen

constants parameters Concrete Sandstone Granite
Strength A 0.79 0.79 0.79
constants B 1.60 1.60 1.60
N 0.60 0.60 0.60
C 0.007 0.007 0.007
Smax 7.00 7.00 7.00
G (GPa) 14.86 31.14 34.13
Damage D1 0.04 0.044 0.046
constants D2 1.00 1.00 1.00
(εpf+μpf)m 0.01 0.01 0.01
Figure 6. Diagram showing equation of state of EOS K1 (GPa) 85 85 85
brittle specimen. constants K2 (GPa) -171 -171 -171
K3 (GPa) 208 208 208
material. The brittle specimen has no air voids, and Pcrush (GPa) 0.016 0.034 0.05
thus fulfills the condensed material Hugoniot rela- Plock (GPa) 0.80 0.80 0.80
tionship. The pressure and the volumetric strain rela- μcrush 0.001 0.001 3 0.001
tionship is given by
P = K1 μ + K 2 μ 2 + K 3 μ 3 (15)
where μ = ( μ − μlock ) (1 + μlock ) represents the cor-
rected volumetric strain; and K1, K2, K3 are constants.
The tensile pressure is restricted to T(1–D). To iden-
tify each material parameter in the constitutive law,
the tri-axial compression and high strain rate dynamic
tests must be performed on the brittle specimens. This
derives the brittle specimen’s EOS and the material
strength parameters.
In this analysis, the material parameters of brittle
specimens are presented in Table 2.
The finite element mesh schemes of the piston
mass, bit and impact specimens (concrete, granite and
sandstone) are shown in Figs. 7a–7c, respectively. The
element type SOLID 164 (8-node hexahedron element)
in LS-DYNA is used in meshing. There are 10 332
elements and 14 280 nodes in the piston model,
62 542 elements and 28 464 nodes in the bit model. As
the impact specimen elements may fail during the
DTH hammer impact process, a finer mesh in some
specific regions of the impact specimen surface is Figure 7. Finite element mesh model of JW150
needed. Consequently, in this analysis, the impact DTH hammer percussive drilling system. (a) Finite
specimen is discretized into 478 652 elements and element mesh model of piston; (b) finite element
308 464 nodes by SOLID 164 element. mesh model of bit and bit inserts; (c) finite element
mesh model of brittle specimen.
874 Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin

Contact interfaces modeling model, in which way the specimen model can be
The contact interface type “automatic surface to treated as a half-space infinite domain.
surface” is used to calculate the contact between the
piston and the bit. And an eroding contact algorithm RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
provided within LS-DYNA together with the inte- Wave Propagation and Crush Zone Formation in
grated failure model was used to simulate the impact Impact Specimen
and penetration between the bit inserts and impact The numerical analysis of the impact stage pro-
area of the brittle specimens, in which way all failed vides significant kinetic information of the penetration
concrete elements are deleted and contact surfaces can process. Values for impact force, penetration velocity
be automatically updated to the next layer of specimen and displacement of the bit inserts and for other rele-
elements. vant physical and geometric quantities are provided at
each time increment.
Initial condition and boundary condition The sandstone specimen is selected for numerical
The piston mass is given an initial velocity v0 modeling and simulation under the piston impact ve-
along the global coordinate y. All the nodes of bottom locity of 7.2 m/s. The time-history processes of impact
surface of the impact specimen are set to zero dis- wave propagation in piston, bit, sandstone and sand-
placement constraints. In order to prevent artificial stone crush zone formation are depicted in Fig. 8. Re-
stress wave reflections generated at the concrete ferring to Fig. 8, when the impact charge is initiated,
boundaries form reentering the model and contami- an elastic-plastic wave propagates in the piston and bit
nating the results, non-reflecting boundaries are used outward from the surface of the initiation. However,
on the exterior boundaries of the impact specimen the sandstone surface is not immediately high stressed

Figure 8. Progressive impact simulation of DTH hammer percussive drilling process by LS-DYNA. (a)
t=7.53e-006 s (piston and bit); (b) t=1.02e-004 s (piston and bit); (c) t=1.82e-004 s (piston and bit); (d)
t=1.08e-006 s (bit inserts); (e) t=4.68e-004 s (bit inserts); (f) t=7.12e-004 s (bit inserts); (g) t=1.08e-006 s
(sandstone); (h) t=4.68e-004 s (sandstone); (i) t=7.12e-004 s (sandstone).
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 875

as the wave needs a little time to reach the contact

surface between inserts and sandstone.
When the impact waves reach the contact sur-
faces of inserts and sandstone, the bit acts on the
sandstone, and 18 high stress zones (10 bottom zones,
8 side zones), which correspond to the highlight zones
in Fig. 8, appear immediately beneath the tungsten
carbide inserts of the bit. Stress fields are radiated
outside the highly stressed zones and the stresses de-
crease rapidly with increasing distance from the
insert-sandstone contact points.
Figure 9. The variation of impact force between
It is interesting to find that, although the sand-
piston-bit interaction under different impact ve-
stone immediately beneath the inserts is highly
locities (sandstone).
stressed, its element does not fail primarily because of
the high confining pressure. And elastic-plastic zones
can just be seen from the surface of sandstone, seen in
Fig. 8g. As the stress intensity builds up with an in-
creasing impact load, the sandstone elements immedi-
ately beneath the inserts fail. The crushed zones
gradually come into being as some elements in the
high confining pressure zone fail. And big fragmenta-
tion zones on sandstone surface can be seen in Figs.
8h and 8i, respectively. Underneath the bit insert there
are three zones, i.e., a zone of disintegrated and partly
compacted sandstone fragments, a cracked zone and a
crushed zone.
Figure 10. Impact force of bit-sandstone interac-
Velocity Effects on Impact of Percussive Drilling tion under different impact velocities.
Process
The corresponding time histories of impact forces piston velocity increased.
are plotted in Figs. 9 and 10 for the sandstone speci- As depicted in Fig. 10, all impact force history
men subjected to various piston impact velocities, i.e., curves show a sudden drop at one particular point,
6.5, 7.2, and 8.0 m/s, respectively. which indicates the onset of sandstone fracture. It is
The figures indicate that the impact loads of pis- worthy noting that the fracture of the sandstone oc-
ton and bit appear to be relatively sensitive to piston curred very suddenly during bit impact and resulted in
impact velocity and the forces become larger as the multiple crushed zones.
impact velocities increase. According to Fig. 9, it can The impact force-penetration response is closely
be found that the impact between piston and bit oc- related to the fractures in the sandstone induced by the
curred at two times larger forces, whereas the duration bit inserts. Figure 11 shows the simulated force pene-
of the first impact didn’t change with respect to the tration curve and associated characteristics during the
piston velocity. This can be explained by the fact that sandstone fragmentation process induced by the DTH
the piston separates from the drill bit before the sand- hammer bit inserts. The area underneath the impact
stone can reflect any stress wave back into the piston. force-penetration curve represents the impact energy
Another effect of the piston impact velocity can be absorbed by the sandstone specimen.
observed by varying the impact forces. The period As shown in Fig. 11, the force-penetration curve
between the two impact times becomes shorter as the has almost a linear shape in the initial loading stage,
876 Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin

Specimen Material Effects on Impact of Percussive

Drilling
Figures 12 and 13 show the time histories of im-
pact forces when the bit impacts the concrete, granite
and sandstone with the piston velocity of 7.2 m/s,
demonstrating the differences in DTH hammer per-
cussive drilling process.
It can be seen from Fig. 12 that the concrete,
granite and sandstone predict almost the same results
for the impact forces between piston-bit interaction
before t=0.000 25 s. This means that the materials of
Figure 11. Force-penetration curves of sandstone impact specimen do not affect the first impact process
under different piston velocities. between piston-bit interactions. However, the period
between the two times impacts and the magnitudes of
i.e., the curve between point A and point B, which is the second impact forces greatly depend on the speci-
the linear elastic-plastic deformation stage of the im- men materials.
pact load. And little damage to the sandstone occurs in Based on the analysis, the impact force between
this period. the granite specimen and bit interaction is clearly
With the increasing impact force, the higher than those of concrete and sandstone, as illus-
force-penetration curve attains its first peak value: trated in Fig. 13. For the granite specimen, the magni-
point B. As the impact loading increases, some of the tude of bit impact force is 691 939 N. However, for
elements in the high confining pressure zone immedi- the concrete and sandstone specimen, the magnitudes
ately fail beneath the inserts. Meantime, the first main of the bit impact forces are 459 621 and 290 085 N,
large chip occurs. As the elements immediately be- respectively. One can notice that when there is a larger
neath the bit inserts fail, the bit inserts almost become impact force of bit, then the shorter impact duration
free of constraints and its supporting forces from the between bit and specimen is. However, compared with
sandstone become weak. Therefore, the force- the area under the force-penetration curve, shown in
penetration curve falls off to its trough at point C, Fig. 14, which represents the energy absorption of the
where the crushed zone comes into being. As the in- specimens during the impact process, the concrete,
sert displacement increases, these inserts reach the granite, and sandstone absorb similar energy quanti-
new layers of sandstone elements. In this case ties under the same impact velocity of 7.2 m/s. The
re-compaction behavior occurs in the crushed zone values of energy absorption of the concrete, sandstone
immediately beneath the bit inserts, and the impact and granite under piston impact velocity of 7.2 m/s are
force-displacement curve climbs, as illustrated in the 358, 357 and 333 J, respectively.
curve points form C and D. The recorded force-penetration curves associated
The large drop in the impact force occurs after with the fragmentation process of the concrete, granite
point D, and meantime the displacements of bit inserts and sandstone specimen under impact velocity of 7.2
decrease, which indicates that a substantial part of the m/s are depicted in Fig. 14. In fact, the force-
sandstone has now been unloaded. The phenomenon penetration curves not only reflect energy absorption
takes place because most of the impact energy of the by the impact specimens, but also indicate the propa-
bit is released and eventually dissipated by sandstone gation of cracks, the crushing of micro-structural
fracturing. However, the bit will bounce at a very low grains and the formation of chips.
velocity from the impact surface of sandstone as some From the results, it can be seen that the
remaining kinetic energy still exists in the bit. force-penetration curve of granite (triangular envelope
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 877

loop) is very sharp due to granite’s hard properties, case. When bit inserts impact the granite specimen,
and bit inserts generate small penetration depth in this they meet great stiffness support and the impact load-
ing increases immediately to a high level, and then the
elements in the high confining pressure zone immedi-
ately fail beneath the inserts. However, for those soft
specimens like sandstone and concrete, bit inserts
generate large penetration depth and the impact forces
seem to be very smooth. From the above-described
simulation results, it is easy to understand that the
penetration depth is dependent on the impact force
magnitude and the macro-mechanical properties of the
brittle materials.

CONCLUSIONS
Figure 12. The variation of impact force between The finite element program LS-DYNA was
piston-bit interaction (different specimens: con- adopted to study the impact performance of DTH
crete, granite and sandstone). hammer percussive drilling process. The influencing
factors like piston impact velocity and specimen ma-
terial that affect DTH hammer impact process were
investigated. The physical process such as impact
penetration of specimen subjected to DTH hammer
impact was displayed visually.
It can be concluded from the simulation results
that the impact forces of piston-bit interaction appear
to be relatively sensitive to piston impact velocity and
the impact force becomes larger as the impact velocity
increases. The impact between piston-bit interactions
occurs at a two times larger force, whereas the dura-
tion of the first impact doesn’t change with respect to
Figure 13. The variation of impact force between the piston velocity. In addition, the envelope loop
bit-specimen interaction (different specimens: con- force-penetration curve of granite is very sharp due to
crete, granite and sandstone). granite’s hard properties, and in this case the bit in-
serts generate small penetration depths. However, for
those soft specimens such as sandstone and concrete,
the bit inserts generate large penetration depth and the
impact forces seem to be very smooth. The simulated
force-penetration curve is in fact an indication of the
propagation of cracks and the formation of chips in
the specimen.
According to the simulated results, it is believed
that this numerical simulation method will contribute
to an improved knowledge of the specimen fragmen-
tation process under DTH hammer impact, which will
in turn help to enhance mining and drilling efficiency
through the improved design of DTH hammers and
Figure 14. Force-penetration curve (different im- other percussive drilling tools.
pact specimens: concrete, granite and sandstone).
 878 Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin

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