Evaluation of a drill bit button arrangement for enhanced drilling efficiency

The drill bit, which directly transmits percussive forces and torque to the rock, is the core part of a rock drilling machine. For effective drilling, the button arrangement of a drill bit should be optimized because it is the most important design factor in determining drilling efficiency. Furthermore, a quantitative method is necessary to evaluate the button arrangement for the optimization of the drill bit button. Therefore, we propose a new method for the evaluation of the drill bit button arrangement using new evaluation indices, which include the overlapped impact area , blank area, and moment. Moreover, we verify the suitability of the proposed evaluation method by applying it to the conventional button arrangement.