ABSTRACT
Modern society needs excavation of the Earth’s crust, especially for mining and construction purposes. The requirement of excavation gradually increases in parallel to the development of the different technologies and the increasing prosperity demand of the societies. This requirement increased tremendously especially after World War II. As a result, many developments were carried out in the excavation industry, particularly in mechanical excavation methods. Drill-blast method is an older excavation method and used very commonly. However, a new scientific discipline called “rock-cutting mechanics” or “mechanical excavation” was born in the early 1950s, and this sped up the competition between mechanical and drill-blast excavation methods. Today, mechanical excavation takes an important share in the excavation industry as an alternative to conventional drill-blast.
