Thermographic analysis of heat generation during ucs testing of rocks


Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mining Engineering, Turkey

Approval Date: 2020

Thesis Language: English

Student: ALPER KIRMACI

Supervisor: Mustafa Erkayaoğlu

Abstract:

SMining activities concentrate on the production of underground resources for energy generation and raw material requirements worldwide, as it is also the case in Turkey. For this reason, the exploration of new resources proceeds consistently to meet the increasing raw material demand of the industry. Rock mechanics has a vital role in underground mining and surface mining. At present, the devices and instruments used in rock mechanics laboratory testing, for example, uniaxial compressive strength test, have inferior sensing capability of the initial formation of cracks. Therefore, some inferences must be made by analyzing the data collected during tests. However, this effort cannot be supported with crucial and reliable visual data at the initial crack formation. Regarding this, in this thesis study, the failure behavior of different types of rock specimens was analyzed by a thermal camera during uniaxial compressive strength tests. Hence, this thesis study is expected to become one of the current studies in rock mechanics literature. Therefore, it is foreseen that this subject will make a significant contribution to literature. The experiment results show that gneiss-schist specimens have greater uniaxial compressive strength values than andesite samples. Temperature increase at the failure moment was detected as 4.45 ℃ and 9.58 ℃ for andesite and gneiss-schist specimens, respectively. Higher temperature increase was observed with respect to UCS value. Besides, a temperature decrease was recorded during marble specimens. The amount of temperature decrease was detected about 0.5-0.6 ℃. The temperature change at the specimen causes the radiation energy release. As a result of the porosity tests, it was observed that increase in the porosity rate is parallel to higher radiation energy released, from 17.72 kJ to 107.81 kJ.