In the mining and civil engineering industries point-attack picks (conical picks) are extensively employed on mechanical excavators such as roadheaders, continuous miners and longwall shearers to cut relatively harder rocks/coals compared with radial picks. They are more durable than radial picks, and can economically cut intact rocks having up to around 120 MPa uniaxial compressive strength at...

Oaks (Quercus) are economically important, and their seed (acorns) a valuable food for many animals. Thus, forest managers must consider potential tradeoffs between oak growth acorn production. I used 13 years of dbh 17 trapping data on 195 trees five common eastern species to compare stand-level production closed canopy mature (M) recent shelterwood with reserves regeneration harvests (SW) (BA...

Laser cutting is a complex multi-input multi-output machining process. To satisfy different requirements regarding laser cut quality it is necessary to determine optimal laser cutting conditions. This paper demonstrates the application of the grey relational analysis for optimization of different laser cut quality characteristics such as the depth of separation line, drag line separation and bu...

* Corresponding author. 360S, Agricultural En 217 333 2969; fax: þ1 217 244 0323. E-mail address: [email protected] (A 1537-5110/$ e see front matter a 2012 IAgrE doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2012.02.003 Previous studies highlighted the need to develop efficient harvesting and size reduction equipment for miscanthus. This study investigated the effect of blade oblique angles and cutting spee...

We present the development of a new underwater laser cutting process in which a water-jet has been used along with the laser beam to remove the molten material through kerf. The conventional underwater laser cutting usually utilizes a high pressure gas jet along with laser beam to create a dry condition in the cutting zone and also to eject out the molten material. This causes a lot of gas bubb...

This paper presents specific cutting energy measurements as a function of the cutting speed and tool cutting edge geometry. The experimental work was carried out on a vertical CNC machining center with 7,500 rpm spindle rotation and 7.5 kW power. Hardened steels ASTM H13 (50 HRC) were machined at conventional cutting speed and high-speed cutting (HSC). TiN coated carbides with seven different g...