Application of a small-timescale fatigue, crack-growth model to the plane stress/strain transition in predicting the lifetime of a tunnel-boring-machine cutter head

The crack-growth lifetime of a tunnel-boring-machine (TBM) cutter head accounts for more than 80% of a TBM cutter head's entire lifetime. Considering the ultrathick plate of a TBM cutter head, a small-timescale crack-growth model is modified to predict crack-growth lifetime based on the plane stress/strain transition condition. An improved quasistatic method is proposed to calculate the dynamic stress of the weak points of the cutter head, which...