Determining Efficient Operating Modes and Sizes of Blades for Multi-Scraper Trench Excavators

The presented results of scientific research are aimed at increasing the efficiency of trenching for laying the utility lines using new less energy-consuming technologies of excavating the soil with the working equipment of multi-scraper excavators. The proposed method of determining the efficient operating modes for excavators when digging a trench is based on the idea of cutting the soil with the blades at a critical depth level, which guarantees consumption of minimum specific energy and maximum efficiency of the machine. This becomes possible if the operation of such blades is provided with the absolute values and the ratio of the speeds of cutting and submitting the working body into the face. To determine the efficient modes of multi-scraper excavators and the size of their edge side blades, the conditions of their effective unloading were identified and the patterns of changing the soil movement over the surface of unloading scrapers depending on the time of unloading were determined. For the same purpose, the dependences of the blocked cutting speed on the trench width were determined and the technical performance of the excavator was specified on the basis of determining the soil bearing capacity for one group of blades. It is found that the time of unloading the soil from the scrapers very slightly depends on their angular velocity within its change in the unloading zone. On this basis, the maximum angular speed of the scrapers is determined. The identified indicators are related to the width of the edge side blades performing asymmetric locked cutting, whose dimensions were determined by calculations. The obtained efficient operating modes of scraper trench excavators and the size of their edge side blades allow developing practical recommendations for improving the working equipment of excavators of this type