The cuttability of evaporites

Abstract

With ever-rising labour costs, the mining engineer and the underground civil engineer look to mechanical excavation systems to increase productivity. The research described in this paper was part of a major and long term programme of experimental work carried out in the Mining Engineering Department of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. One of the objectives of this research was to investigate the cuttability of evaporites. To this end each rock which has been tested for its cutting properties has also been subjected to a wide range of physical and mechanical tests. All the results are discussed in this paper.