A novel true triaxial test system for microwave-induced fracturing of hard rocks

Abstract

This study introduces a test system for microwave-induced fracturing of hard rocks under true triaxial stress. The test system comprises a true triaxial stress loading system, an open-ended microwave-induced fracturing system, a data acquisition system, an acoustic emission (AE) monitoring system, and an auxiliary specimen loading system. Microwave-induced surface and borehole fracturing tests under true triaxial stress were fulfilled for the first time, which overcomes the problem of microwave leakage in the coupling loading of true triaxial stress and microwave. By developing the dynamic monitoring system, the thermal response and fracture evolution were obtained during microwave irradiation. The monitoring system includes the infrared thermometry technique for monitoring rock surface temperature, the distributed optic fiber sensing technique for monitoring temperature in borehole in rock, the AE technique and two-dimensional digital speckle correlation technique for monitoring the evolution of thermal damage and the rock fracturing process. To validate the advantages of the test system and investigate the characteristics of microwave-induced fracturing of hard rocks, the study demonstrates the experimental methods and results for microwave-induced surface and borehole fracturing under true triaxial stress. The results show that thermal cracking presented intermittent characteristics (calm–active–calm) during microwave-induced surface and borehole fracturing of basalt. In addition, true triaxial stress can inhibit the development and distribution of thermal cracks during microwave-induced surface fracturing. When microwave-induced borehole fracturing occurs, it promotes the distribution of thermal cracks in rock, but inhibits the width of cracks. The results also prove the reliability of the test system.