Cutting drum and method of designing a cutting drum

Abstract

A method of designing a cutting drum for earth moving equipment is disclosed. The cutting drum has two or more ring segments, each ring segment comprising a plurality of cutting tools, and the rotational position of at least one ring segment is adjustable relative to one or more other ring segment and fixable in the new rotational position. The method involves inputting a plurality of design parameters of a cutting drum into a computer program, performing a computer simulated analysis of the cutting drum using the computer program to determine at least one operational value associated with at least one design objective, using the computer simulated analysis to determine the relative locations of the ring segments that correspond to the at least one design objective, and rotating the or each adjustable ring segment relative to at least one other ring segment so that the relative locations of the ring segments correspond to the at least one design objective. A cutting drum for use with the method is also disclosed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.