Numerical investigation of slurry shield cutterhead design for clogging mitigation using a coupled computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method approach

Key Points

• Cutterhead design significantly reduces clogging in slurry shield systems, improving operational efficiency.
• Simulation data indicates a reduction of 30% in clogging events when using optimized designs across various scenarios.
• Analysis using coupled computational fluid dynamics and discrete element methods reveals intricate interactions between fluid and solid particles.
• Findings highlight the need for further exploration in real-world applications to validate numerical models.