Journal of Earth Science, Vol. 20, No. 5, p.

868878, 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* (), Qu Yegao (), Cheng Zhiqiang (), Liu Baolin ()
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 doesnt 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
Pneumatic down-the-hole (DTH) hammer drill-
ing is a rotary percussive drilling technique widely
used in mining, exploration, water-well drilling, road
construction, and other drilling operations around the
world (Bu et al., 2006; Karanam and Misra, 1998).

This study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 50475056).
*Corresponding author: bucg@cugb.edu.cn

Manuscript received February 2, 2009.
Manuscript accepted June 22, 2009.
When the DTH hammer works, it generates percussive
force to the bit to impact and shatter the ground and
the rotational torque rotates it to tear and cut the frag-
ments whilst the thrust force keeps it in contact with
the ground during bit advancement. In the meantime,
the drill cuttings and detritus in the form of fine parti-
cles and dust are brought from the hole to the ground
surface via an air flushing medium as shown in Fig. 1.
This drilling technique has a major advantage in that it
can rapidly and economically produce holes in hard
rocks for various construction and mining purposes.
In the pneumatic DTH hammer, a piston moving
with speed v
0
collides with a drill bit. A stress wave
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 869

Figure 1. Typical structure of pneumatic DTH
drilling system.

then begins to propagate through the drill bit towards
the rock and backwards through the piston from the
impact plane. The front end of the stress wave eventu-
ally reaches the rock interface, where the tungsten
carbide inserts mounted on the drill bit surface gener-
ate high point stresses. Depending on the drilling abil-
ity of the rock, a certain amount of energy will be dis-
sipated by the rock fragmentation. The remaining en-
ergy will be distributed among the piston, drill bit and
other DTH hammer components according to their
mass, stiffness and geometric properties. How the
wave propagates in the piston, bit, rock and other
components is of paramount importance in the impact
process of the DTH hammer percussive drilling.
The mechanics of percussive drilling has been
analyzed numerically and experimentally since the
early 1960s. The pioneering works on theoretical and
experimental studies on the percussive drilling of rock
were done by Hustrulid and Fairhurst (Hustrulid and
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 Lundbergs method. Chiang and
Elas (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
percussive drilling system were discretized into nodes
and elements, and the corresponding impulse momen-
tum equations were applied iteratively assuming that a
wave travels at the speed of sound in the medium.
Generally, the previous published works on per-
cussive drilling system impact were based upon the
solutions of the stress wave equation or the linear im-
pulse momentum principle. In these works, the
rock-bit interaction is usually modeled by a nonlinear
spring, while the piston and the bit are often simplified
as straight or cone-shaped bars. In fact, these simula-
tion methods make use of a force-penetration curve to
model the rock-bit interaction, therefore, the validity
of the simulation results greatly depends on the avail-
ability and accuracy of this curve (Chiang, 2004). For
this reason, many researchers have been active in de-
veloping better and simpler methods to obtain accu-
rate force-penetration curves in rocks and other mate-
rials (Chiang, 2004; Carlsson et al., 1990; Pang et al.,
1989).
Actually, the piston and the bit in DTH hammer
are usually thick and short, and have complex geo-
Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin 870
metric shapes. These simplifications mentioned above
in 1D elastic stress wave models or impulse momen-
tum equations may bring great error to the results as
they ignore the wave propagation attenuation and dis-
persion in piston and bit due to the radial inertia ef-
fects. Based on 3D axisymmetric finite element
method, Lundberg and Okrouhlik (2006, 2001) inves-
tigated the 3D effects on the efficiency of DTH ham-
mer drilling process. Chiang and Elas (2008) devel-
oped a more sophisticated finite element model to
simulate the energy transmission, the bit-rock interac-
tion, and the process of rock fragmentation in percus-
sive drilling. However, the effects on wave reflection
of local structures like spline and air slot are neglected
in these models. Furthermore, it should be pointed out
that bit-rock interaction conducted as a nonlinear
spring is a quasi-static method based on the measure-
ment of the penetration force on the rock, and can be
used as just an approximation for those bits with one
or two inserts. For bits with multi-inserts in DTH
hammers, the nonlinear spring parameters are difficult
to be obtained. Hence, the 1D wave model is restricted
to the DTH hammer and has some limitations. There-
fore, it is of great importance and interest to study the
percussive drilling process of DTH hammer in order
to achieve a better understanding of the percussive
drilling mechanism.
Taking brittle materials (concrete, granite and
sandstone) as impact specimens, this work employs
the explicit time integration nonlinear finite element
code LS-DYNA to analyze the impact and penetration
boundary conditions in pneumatic DTH hammer per-
cussive drilling system. The force-penetration curves
of concrete, granite and sandstone under DTH ham-
mer impact have been recorded and the formation of
the craters and fractures has been investigated. The
simulated force-penetration curve is in fact the indica-
tion of the propagation of cracks and the formation of
chips. According to the simulated results, it is believed
that this numerical simulation method will contribute
to an improved knowledge of the rock fragmentation
process in DTH hammer drilling, which will in turn
help enhance mining and drilling efficiency through
the improved design of percussive drilling tools and
equipment.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND
METHOD FORMULATION
LS-DYNA is used in the simulation of DTH
hammer percussive drilling system in the present
study. This computer code performs nonlinear tran-
sient dynamic analysis of three-dimensional structures.
LS-DYNA has a wide variety of analysis capabilities
including a large number of material models, a variety
of contact modeling options, a library of beam, plate,
shell, and solid elements and robust algorithms for
adaptively controlling the solution process (Hallquist,
2003). In the solution process, stress wave propaga-
tion and inertia effect are considered. Its principle al-
gorithm adopts Lagrangian formulation.
When a piston impacts a bit on a DTH hammer,
their contact is assumed to have no friction. The gov-
erning equations for both bodies are the following.
Equation of mass conservation
V=
0
(1)
where V represents the relative volume; denotes the
current density; and
0
denotes the reference density.
Equation of momentum conservation
, ij j i i
f u + = (2)
where
ij,j
represents the Cauchy stress; f
i
represents
the body force density; and
i
denotes the acceleration.
Equation of energy conservation
( )
ij
s ij
E V p q V = +

(3)
where
ij
and p denote the deviatoric stresses and
hydrostatic pressure, respectively, as given in
( )
ij ij ij
s p q = + + (4)
where q represents the bulk viscosity;
ij
denotes the
Kronecker delta (
ij
=1, if i=j; otherwise
ij
=0); and
ij
denotes the strain rate tensor
1 1
3 3
ij ij kk
p q q = = (5)
Based on the virtual work principle, equation (2) can
be expressed as a weak form of equilibrium equation
( ) ( )
( )
,
d + d +
d = 0
i ij j i ij j i i
v
ij ij j i
u f u v n t u s
n u s


+

where u
i
fulfills all boundary conditions, and the in-
tegrations are over the current geometry. Application
of the divergence theorem gives
( )
( )
, d d
d
ij i j ij j i
v
ij ij j i
u v n u s
n u s


+
= +

(7)
(6)
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 871
and noting that
( )
, ,
,
ij i j ij j i ij i j
u u u = (8)
leads to the weak form of the equilibrium equation
,
d d d
d 0
i i ij i j i i
v v v
i i
v
u u v u v f u v
t u s

= +
=

If the finite element technique is interconnected using
a matrix form, Equation (9) becomes
1
1
d d
0
d d
m m
m
m
t t
n
v v
t t
m
v b
N v v
v t s

+

=

N a B
N b N
(10)
where N is an interpolation matrix; is the stress vec-
tor; B is the strain-displacement matrix; a is the nodal
acceleration vector; b is the body force load vector;
and t is applied traction load.
The equation is integrated in time and is applied
to evaluate the equation of state and for a global en-
ergy balance.

FINITE ELEMENT MODEL OF DTH HAMMER
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 v
0
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 2. Diagram showing the structure model of
JW150 DTH hammer.
inserts are listed in Table 1.

Equivalent Strength Model of Brittle Specimen
To fully describe the dynamic effect of brittle
specimens within the impact procedure, several mod-
els have been implemented in LS-DYNA, designed
for special purposes such as damage, effect of strain
rate and cracks. This investigation employs results
from the perforation simulations with the LS-DYNA
and the Johnson-Holmsquist concrete material
model (Holmquist et al., 1993)

to forecast brittle

Table 1 Material parameters of piston, bit and tungsten
carbide inserts
Part in DTH
hammer
Density
(kg/m
3
)
Modulus of
elasticity E (GPa)
Poisson
ratio
Piston 7 850 206.0 0.3
Bit 7 850 206.0 0.3
Tungsten
carbide inserts
14 500 588.0 0.22


Figure 3. Diagram showing the analysis model of
JW150 DTH hammer.
(9)
Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin 872
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
( )
( )
* * *
1 1 ln
N
A D BP C

= + +

(11)
The normalized equivalent stress is given by

*
=/f
C
, where 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
;
*
denotes the dimensionless
strain rate, given by
*
0
= ; represents the ac-
tual strain rate;
1
0
1.0 s

= represents the reference
strain rate; D (0D1) denotes the damage parameter,
and the normalized largest tensile strength is given by
T
*
=T/f
C
, where T represents the maximum tensile
stress. Additionally A, B, N, C, and S
max
denote the
material parameters, respectively as normalized cohe-
sive strength, normalized pressure hardening coeffi-
cient, pressure hardening exponent, strain rate coeffi-
cient and normalized maximum strength.


Figure 4. Diagram showing the equivalent strength
model.

Accumulated Damage Failure Model
The accumulated damage failure model for brittle
specimen is illustrated in Fig. 5. The Johnson-
Holmquist concrete model considered, owing to plas-
tic volumetric strain. The damage model is written as
p p
f f
p p
D


+
=
+

(12)
where
p
and
p
represent the equivalent plastic

Figure 5. Diagram showing damage failure model
of brittle specimen. EF
min
. minimum plastic strain
of material fracture.

strain increment and plastic volumetric strain incre-
ment, respectively, during one cycle of integral com-
putation. The equation
( )
2
f f * *
p p p 1
= + = +
D
f D P T (13)
represents the plastic strain to fracture under a con-
stant pressure, where D
1
and D
2
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 PP
crush
, where the
material is in elastic state. The elastic bulk modulus is
given by k=P
crush
/
crush
, where P
crush
and
crush
repre-
sent the pressure and volumetric strain arising in a
uniaxial compression test. Within the elastic zone, the
loading and unloading equation of state is given by
P=k (14)
where =/
0
1; denotes the current density; and
0

denotes the reference density. The second zone arises
at P
crush
<P<P
lock
, where the material is in the plastic
transition state. In this area, the brittle specimen inte-
rior voids gradually reduce in size as the pressure and
plastic volumetric strain increase. The unloading curve
is solved by the difference from the adjacent regions.
The third area defines the relationship for fully dense
Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 873

Figure 6. Diagram showing equation of state of
brittle specimen.

material. The brittle specimen has no air voids, and
thus fulfills the condensed material Hugoniot rela-
tionship. The pressure and the volumetric strain rela-
tionship is given by
2 3
1 2 3
P K K K = + + (15)
where ( ) ( )
lock lock
1 = + represents the cor-
rected volumetric strain; and K
1
, K
2
, K
3
are constants.
The tensile pressure is restricted to T(1D). 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 specimens 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. 7a7c, 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
needed. Consequently, in this analysis, the impact
specimen is discretized into 478 652 elements and
308 464 nodes by SOLID 164 element.


Table 2 Material parameters of brittle specimens for the
DTH hammer impact analysis
Brittle specimen Material
constants
Material
parameters Concrete Sandstone Granite
A 0.79 0.79 0.79
B 1.60 1.60 1.60
N 0.60 0.60 0.60
C 0.007 0.007 0.007
S
max
7.00 7.00 7.00
Strength
constants
G (GPa) 14.86 31.14 34.13
D
1
0.04 0.044 0.046
D
2
1.00 1.00 1.00
Damage
constants
(
p
f
+
p
f
)
m
0.01 0.01 0.01
K
1
(GPa) 85 85 85
K
2
(GPa) -171 -171 -171
K
3
(GPa) 208 208 208
P
crush
(GPa) 0.016 0.034 0.05
P
lock
(GPa) 0.80 0.80 0.80
EOS
constants

crush
0.001 0.001 3 0.001



Figure 7. Finite element mesh model of JW150
DTH hammer percussive drilling system. (a) Finite
element mesh model of piston; (b) finite element
mesh model of bit and bit inserts; (c) finite element
mesh model of brittle specimen.
Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin 874
Contact interfaces modeling
The contact interface type automatic surface to
surface is used to calculate the contact between the
piston and the bit. And an eroding contact algorithm
provided within LS-DYNA together with the inte-
grated failure model was used to simulate the impact
and penetration between the bit inserts and impact
area of the brittle specimens, in which way all failed
concrete elements are deleted and contact surfaces can
be automatically updated to the next layer of specimen
elements.

Initial condition and boundary condition
The piston mass is given an initial velocity v
0

along the global coordinate y. All the nodes of bottom
surface of the impact specimen are set to zero dis-
placement constraints. In order to prevent artificial
stress wave reflections generated at the concrete
boundaries form reentering the model and contami-
nating the results, non-reflecting boundaries are used
on the exterior boundaries of the impact specimen
model, in which way the specimen model can be
treated as a half-space infinite domain.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Wave Propagation and Crush Zone Formation in
Impact Specimen
The numerical analysis of the impact stage pro-
vides significant kinetic information of the penetration
process. Values for impact force, penetration velocity
and displacement of the bit inserts and for other rele-
vant physical and geometric quantities are provided at
each time increment.
The sandstone specimen is selected for numerical
modeling and simulation under the piston impact ve-
locity of 7.2 m/s. The time-history processes of impact
wave propagation in piston, bit, sandstone and sand-
stone crush zone formation are depicted in Fig. 8. Re-
ferring to Fig. 8, when the impact charge is initiated,
an elastic-plastic wave propagates in the piston and bit
outward from the surface of the initiation. However,
the sandstone surface is not immediately high stressed

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.
It is interesting to find that, although the sand-
stone immediately beneath the inserts is highly
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.

Velocity Effects on Impact of Percussive Drilling
Process
The corresponding time histories of impact forces
are plotted in Figs. 9 and 10 for the sandstone speci-
men subjected to various piston impact velocities, i.e.,
6.5, 7.2, and 8.0 m/s, respectively.
The figures indicate that the impact loads of pis-
ton and bit appear to be relatively sensitive to piston
impact velocity and the forces become larger as the
impact velocities increase. According to Fig. 9, it can
be found that the impact between piston and bit oc-
curred at two times larger forces, whereas the duration
of the first impact didnt change with respect to the
piston velocity. This can be explained by the fact that
the piston separates from the drill bit before the sand-
stone can reflect any stress wave back into the piston.
Another effect of the piston impact velocity can be
observed by varying the impact forces. The period
between the two impact times becomes shorter as the

Figure 9. The variation of impact force between
piston-bit interaction under different impact ve-
locities (sandstone).


Figure 10. Impact force of bit-sandstone interac-
tion under different impact velocities.

piston velocity increased.
As depicted in Fig. 10, all impact force history
curves show a sudden drop at one particular point,
which indicates the onset of sandstone fracture. It is
worthy noting that the fracture of the sandstone oc-
curred very suddenly during bit impact and resulted in
multiple crushed zones.
The impact force-penetration response is closely
related to the fractures in the sandstone induced by the
bit inserts. Figure 11 shows the simulated force pene-
tration curve and associated characteristics during the
sandstone fragmentation process induced by the DTH
hammer bit inserts. The area underneath the impact
force-penetration curve represents the impact energy
absorbed by the sandstone specimen.
As shown in Fig. 11, the force-penetration curve
has almost a linear shape in the initial loading stage,
Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin 876

Figure 11. Force-penetration curves of sandstone
under different piston velocities.

i.e., the curve between point A and point B, which is
the linear elastic-plastic deformation stage of the im-
pact load. And little damage to the sandstone occurs in
this period.
With the increasing impact force, the
force-penetration curve attains its first peak value:
point B. As the impact loading increases, some of the
elements in the high confining pressure zone immedi-
ately fail beneath the inserts. Meantime, the first main
large chip occurs. As the elements immediately be-
neath the bit inserts fail, the bit inserts almost become
free of constraints and its supporting forces from the
sandstone become weak. Therefore, the force-
penetration curve falls off to its trough at point C,
where the crushed zone comes into being. As the in-
sert displacement increases, these inserts reach the
new layers of sandstone elements. In this case
re-compaction behavior occurs in the crushed zone
immediately beneath the bit inserts, and the impact
force-displacement curve climbs, as illustrated in the
curve points form C and D.
The large drop in the impact force occurs after
point D, and meantime the displacements of bit inserts
decrease, which indicates that a substantial part of the
sandstone has now been unloaded. The phenomenon
takes place because most of the impact energy of the
bit is released and eventually dissipated by sandstone
fracturing. However, the bit will bounce at a very low
velocity from the impact surface of sandstone as some
remaining kinetic energy still exists in the bit.


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
impact specimen do not affect the first impact process
between piston-bit interactions. However, the period
between the two times impacts and the magnitudes of
the second impact forces greatly depend on the speci-
men materials.
Based on the analysis, the impact force between
the granite specimen and bit interaction is clearly
higher than those of concrete and sandstone, as illus-
trated in Fig. 13. For the granite specimen, the magni-
tude of bit impact force is 691 939 N. However, for
the concrete and sandstone specimen, the magnitudes
of the bit impact forces are 459 621 and 290 085 N,
respectively. One can notice that when there is a larger
impact force of bit, then the shorter impact duration
between bit and specimen is. However, compared with
the area under the force-penetration curve, shown in
Fig. 14, which represents the energy absorption of the
specimens during the impact process, the concrete,
granite, and sandstone absorb similar energy quanti-
ties under the same impact velocity of 7.2 m/s. The
values of energy absorption of the concrete, sandstone
and granite under piston impact velocity of 7.2 m/s are
358, 357 and 333 J, respectively.
The recorded force-penetration curves associated
with the fragmentation process of the concrete, granite
and sandstone specimen under impact velocity of 7.2
m/s are depicted in Fig. 14. In fact, the force-
penetration curves not only reflect energy absorption
by the impact specimens, but also indicate the propa-
gation of cracks, the crushing of micro-structural
grains and the formation of chips.
From the results, it can be seen that the
force-penetration curve of granite (triangular envelope


Numerical Simulation of Impact in Pneumatic DTH Hammer Percussive Drilling 877
loop) is very sharp due to granites hard properties,
and bit inserts generate small penetration depth in this


Figure 12. The variation of impact force between
piston-bit interaction (different specimens: con-
crete, granite and sandstone).


Figure 13. The variation of impact force between
bit-specimen interaction (different specimens: con-
crete, granite and sandstone).


Figure 14. Force-penetration curve (different im-
pact specimens: concrete, granite and sandstone).
case. When bit inserts impact the granite specimen,
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
The finite element program LS-DYNA was
adopted to study the impact performance of DTH
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 doesnt change with respect to
the piston velocity. In addition, the envelope loop
force-penetration curve of granite is very sharp due to
granites 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
other percussive drilling tools.
Bu Changgen, Qu Yegao, Cheng Zhiqiang and Liu Baolin 878
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