Damage and fracture characteristics of thermal-treated granite subjected to ultra-high pressure jet

Abstract

The water jet rock breaking technology has broad application prospects in geoenergy development engineering. However, the influence of reservoir temperature on the rock breaking effect is still unclear during the jet rock breaking process. To explore the mechanism of temperature on rock breaking by high-pressure water jets, experiments on the erosion of high-temperature granite by ultra-high pressure pure water jets (UHP-PWJ) and ultra-high pressure abrasive water jet (UHP-AWJ) were conducted at five rock temperatures: 25 °C, 100 °C, 200 °C, 300 °C, and 400 °C. Through three-dimensional reconstruction and microscopic observation techniques, the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of rock fragmentation were analyzed, ultimately revealing the dynamic damage and rock breaking mechanisms of ultra-high pressure water jet. The results indicated that rock temperature influences result in different fragmentation characteristics under the action of two types of jets, with UHP-PWJ demonstrating significantly superior rock-breaking effects on high-temperature granite compared to UHP-AWJ. As granite temperature increases from 25 °C to 400 °C, the damage depth range for the UHP-PWJ is 30–75 times the nozzle diameter, while for the UHP-AWJ, it is only 30–40 times the nozzle diameter. For UHP-PWJ, the rock breaking mechanism is mainly driven by thermal stress, supplemented by high-speed jet impact. The significant increase in rock temperature significantly enhances its rock breaking effect, with erosion pits appearing in a spindle shape and more complex crack distribution around the pores. Compared with 25 °C granite, the damage caused by 400 °C granite jet impact increased by 6.8 times and the surface area of cracks increased by 6.5 times. For UHP-AWJ, high temperature hard rock fragmentation still relies mainly on jet impact and abrasive grinding. The thermal stress caused by rock temperature has a relatively small impact on its rock breaking effect, and the D value of the internal damage degree of granite at different temperatures is less than 0.005. The erosion pits are conical in shape, and no macroscopic cracks caused by jet impact and thermal cracking can be clearly observed around the pit. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for optimizing the parameters of high-pressure jet development technology for deep geoenergy.