Design of a Discrete Element Method Parameter Identification System for the Efficient Excavation of Mining Shovels Based on Excavation Resistance Analysis

Recently, fluctuations in the cost of labor and prices of natural resources have increased the difficulty of the business environment for mine development. Therefore, it is necessary to improve excavation efficiency using hydraulic excavators. Getting the actual excavation resistance for efficient excavation is challenging. To obtain lower resistance in excavation, we aimed to design a Discrete Element Method (DEM) parameter identification system that can calculate excavation resistance. To validate two calculation models in this system, we used a robot arm, different excavation objects, and a DEM software to compare the resistance between the actual excavation and the simulation. We selected the calculation model more approximate to the actual excavation resistance. Thus, our experiments could prove data similarities between simulation and actual excavation. However, a part of excavation resistance is still not approximated in simulation. Therefore, we conducted experiments using steel balls to identify the relationship between the physical properties of excavation objects and the calculated resistance.