Effects of Strain Hardening on Rock / Bit-Tooth Interaction

The rock/bit-tooth interaction problem has been approximated previously by plasticity analysis of a wedge indenting a half-space. In the previous work the rock, under high confining pressure, was assumed to be perfectly plastic. In the present paper, an approximate method is presented for including the effects of strain hardening of the rock on the pressure distribution at the rock bit-tooth interface. The slip-line field for the perfectly plastic solution is used as a basis for applying corrections for the strain-hardening effect.