Problems, including serious cutterhead wearing, cutterhead clogging and ground surface settlement, occur during the EPB shield boring in waterrich sandy gravel strata in Chengdu. As a result, the design of the cutterhead is optimized in terms of cutterhead structure, cutter arrangement, antiwearing protection and ground conditioning. The shield with the optimized cutterhead achieves longdistance boring and good ground surface settlement control effect. The paper can provide reference for the design of the cutterheads of shields boring in similar strata in the future.