The dredged soil encountered in dredging projects has become more and more complex,especially the SPT blow counts of hard clay encountered in the construction of the deep water channel with trailing suction hopper dredger reaches 20,which is obviously different from the hard state of clay in previous channel dredging projects.In order to study the excavation mechanism of draghead tooth in hard clay,underwater fast cutting experiments were conducted on hard clay with SPT blow counts of 18,21,and 25 under different cutting speeds and depths to investigate the variation of draghead tooth cutting resistance.By arranging the cutting resistance sensor on the draghead tooth,the underwater cutting resistance of the draghead tooth under different cutting conditions was obtained,and the influence of cutting speed,cutting depth and SPT blow counts of clay on the draghead tooth cutting resistance was analyzed respectively,which provides theoretical support for the design of the hard clay draghead.