Friction generated ultrasound from geotechnical materials

Drilling is a process involved with product manufacturing and for civil engineers, site preparation. The usual requirement is for efficient material removal. In this study, the friction pair interaction generated by a drilling process provides ultrasound information related to parameters for the geotechnical material being drilled, where the drill bit has non-degrading ultrasonic characteristics and no essential requirement for material removal. This study has considered monitoring the ultrasonic signal generated by a drilling process, with a view to characterising the parameters of the geotechnical material being drilled and provides a novel method to identify or characterise ground structures. Drilling of geotechnical material systems, typically involve the interaction of a rotating probe and a granular composite medium. The applied load and angular velocity are measured to determine their relevance to the ultrasonic signal. Samples of granular materials have been graded into controlled grain size ranges. Attention has been focused on determining the effects on the ultrasound signal of grain size, bulk density and the water content of the granular material. A comparison between the various granular samples of the different grain sizes, density, water content and the associated ultrasonic signal has been done. The effect of each variable, and existing theory for these effects is commented upon. The broad aim of this research is to evaluate ultrasonic monitoring of drilling and assess its potential for real-time geotechnical ground condition monitoring applications and offer it as an alternative to existing methods.