Experimental study on failure and fracturing attributes of granite after thermal treatments with different cooling conditions

Thermal damage is one of the fundamental mechanisms affecting the stability of rocks encountered in many deep geo-engineering ventures such as nuclear waste isolation, geothermal extraction etc. In the present study, the findings on influence of heating and subsequent cooling conditions on the fracturing and mechanical behaviour of an Indian granite are discussed. The granite samples from Jalore region of India were heated from room temperature to 600 °C followed by slow cooling and water quenching treatments. It was observed that rapid cooling through quenching had a greater impact on strength, elastic properties than slow cooling rate. Moreover, a drastic shift in terms of fracturing thresholds was witnessed, as a function of both temperature and sudden thermal shock experienced by rock at higher cooling rate. The simultaneous AE monitoring results suggested an early crack damage at higher thermal regimes. With help of microscopic observations, it was observed that inter-granular crack boundaries widened with increasing thermal damage experienced by minerals under both cooling conditions. However, the fracturing process was intense under rapid cooling treatment due to the invasion of water due to quenching which accelerated severe intra-crack growths, especially at higher thermal stress because of the rapid cooling rate than the slow cooling. The increased intensity of thermal cracks with temperatures and with variation in cooling rate was inferred as the primary reason for decay of rock characteristics. This was very well supplemented by decay in strength properties and changes in fracturing attributes of the tested granite as inferred from acoustic monitoring.