A sampling study on rock properties affecting drilling rate index (DRI)

• Published in: Journal of African earth sciences (1994) 2018-05, Vol.141, p.1-8
• Main Authors: Yenice, Hayati, Özdoğan, Mehmet V., Özfırat, M. Kemal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Drilling rate index; Multiple regression; Rock properties; Simple regression; Statistical analysis
• ISSN: 1464-343X; 1879-1956
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2018.01.015

Drilling rate index (DRI) developed in Norway is a very useful index in determining the drillability of rocks and even in performance prediction of hard rock TBMs and it requires special laboratory test equipment. Drillability is one of the most important subjects in rock excavation. However, determining drillability index from physical and mechanical properties of rocks is very important for practicing engineers such as underground excavation, drilling operations in open pit mining, underground mining and natural stone production. That is why many researchers have studied concerned with drillability to find the correlations between drilling rate index (DRI) and penetration rate, influence of geological properties on drillability prediction in tunneling, correlations between rock properties and drillability. In this study, the relationships between drilling rate index (DRI) and some physico-mechanical properties (Density, Shore hardness, uniaxial compressive strength (UCS, σc), Indirect tensile strength (ITS, σt)) of three different rock groups including magmatic, sedimentary and metamorphic were evaluated using both simple and multiple regression analysis. This study reveals the effects of rock properties on DRI according to different types of rocks. In simple regression, quite high correlations were found between DRI and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and also between DRI and indirect tensile strength (ITS) values. Multiple regression analyses revealed even higher correlations when compared to simple regression. Especially, UCS, ITS, Shore hardness (SH) and the interactions between them were found to be very effective on DRI values. •Magmatic, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks are studied.•Regression analysis are made on rock and drillability properties.•Strong correlations between Drilling Rate Index (DRI) and rock properties are found.