Abstract
Cuttings from five excavation machines (tunnel boring machine, boomheader, rock drill, PDC rotary drill and rotary vibration drill) together with fragments produced by blasting were collected mainly in tunnel excavation sites and their particle distributions were examined.
Mean particle size of blasting was the biggest and that of tunnel boring machine the ranked second followed by those of boomheader, PDC rotary drill, rock drill and rotary vibration drill. The mean particle size of each excavation method was found to be proportional to geometric mean L of cutter spacing and penetration. It was also found that the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of particle size D reasonably well follows Rosin-Rammler distribution;
CDF = 1 - exp (-(1.87D / L)0.88)
