Evaluation of Trapezoidal Shaped Grooves

demonstrated that the grooving configuration can be cut repeatedly without the blade integrity deteriorating. In earlier attempts to develop a trapezoidal-shaped blade, it was found that the blade would quickly wear and lose its ability to maintain a trapezoidal-shaped groove after just a few passes across a runway. At the time, blade manufacturing technology and the lack of a properly designed cutting segment did not allow for a blade tip that could resist wear and maintain its trapezoidal shape after repeated cuts. The contractor cited that these issues had been resolved and that they had a blade that would wear much slower and more proportionally than earlier blade designs. Figure 2 shows the blades for cutting standard grooves, and figure 3 shows the blades for cutting trapezoidal-shaped grooves. As a note, the contractor proposing the new trapezoidal-shaped groove holds a patent on the way the special blade segment that they developed is shaped, not on the pattern that is cut. There are several other blade segments available in the public domain that are capable of producing the same trapezoidal-shaped groove.

Figure 2. Blades for Standard Grooves

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