Abstract
Microwave fracturing of rocks prior to mechanical breakage has the potential to significantly enhance rock breakage efficiency while reducing the wear of cutters/bits of mechanical excavators. However, rocks in nature require a vastly different microwave power intensity to be fractured, and they tend to fail in varying patterns under different power intensities. At present, there is no established suggest method for selecting the most suitable microwave antenna to fracture a specific rock in the field. In this study, we compared the technical characteristics of the four open-ended waveguide-based antennas: namely, the horn antenna, the standard waveguide antenna, the converging waveguide antenna, and the dielectric-loaded converging waveguide antenna. Using a 6 kW microwave source and these antennas, we treated four types of hard rocks. We investigated the impact of antenna type on rock fracturing and found that depending on the rock type and antenna used, rocks were typically fractured or weakened in the pattern of cracking, spalling, melting, or a combination thereof. Based on our observations, we have, for the first time, proposed a method for selecting the optimal antenna to fracture rocks with varying microwave fracturability indexes. This paves the way for the commercialization of microwave-assisted mechanical rock breakage.
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