ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to get a better understanding of the effects of rock properties on the rate and type of wear in the transition from scraping to cutting, by performing small scale rock cutting laboratory experiments. Also the cuttability of the different types of rock is considered, since this property is thought to be related to the wear capacity of rock. Mechanical rock properties may therefore only be used to describe the behaviour of rock if the nature of testing is comparable or the same as the nature of the process to which the rock is subjected. Two parameters, rock material strength and hardness of the minerals, are often used to describe behaviour of rock and its components in rock cutting processes. At high confining pressures rock, which under low confining pressure conditions behaves in a brittle way, will behave more ductilely.
