To study the cutting performance of disc cutter during breaking rock, the practical process of breaking rock by disc cutter was simplified. The particle discrete element method was employed to build two-dimensional numerical models considering friction when disc cutter broke the jointed rock and intact rock. The variation of cutting force, crack growth and rock breaking format in the simulation were analyzed. Rotation cutting test bench was adopted to conduct rock breaking experiments, the changing and the recorded cutting force of cutter was compared with the simulation force to verify the numerical model. The study can be concluded as follow: For intact rock, the increase of the cutter penetration can increase the main crack depth and rock breaking area, and the increase of the cutting speed can increase the cutter normal force but have little influence on the rolling force. For jointed rock, higher joint strength leads to higher crack depth and cutting efficiency. The joint direction of rock has a certain impact on the specific energy of rock breaking, and the rock breaking efficiency for forward direction jointed rock is about 12% higher than that for the reverse direction jointed rock. Lower joint angle leads to bigger specific energy difference between forward and reverse direction. Reasonable selection of the cutter head rotating direction can improve rock breaking efficiency.