Heating rate effect of thermal expansion in granite and implications for rock breaking

Abstract

The influence of the heating rate on the thermo-mechanical response and damage evolution of rock is a critical factor limiting the safety and efficiency of engineering applications. Conventional models are limited, however, as they assume a static coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and ignore its dynamic nature under rapid thermal loading. This study confronts this knowledge gap using a synergistic experimental–numerical approach. A custom system combining induction heating and Digital Image Correlation was employed to measure the rate-dependent CTE of both bulk granite and its constituent minerals over various heating rates. These dynamic coefficients were then integrated into a high-fidelity numerical model to simulate microwave-assisted rock breaking. Results definitively show the CTE is strongly rate-dependent. While the quartz phase transition at ~573 °C triggers critical damage, faster heating significantly amplifies strain localization and damage accumulation. Crucially, simulations revealed that under identical microwave loading, the model using dynamic CTE (530 °C/min) reached a 1000 mm² failure area 11 times faster than the model using quasi-static CTE (5 °C/min). This study fundamentally establishes rock’s CTE as a dynamic, rate-dependent property, providing a key scientific basis for advancing such thermal fracturing technologies.

Keywords

Heating rate / Granite / Coefficient of thermal expansion / Thermal damage / Digital image correlation / Microwave rock breaking

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yubo Li: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Investigation, Conceptualization. Lei He: Resources, Formal analysis, Conceptualization. Yueyang Li: Visualization, Supervision, Software. Weiqiang Zhu: Visualization, Validation. Huaiguang Xiao: Funding acquisition. Tienan Wang: Supervision, Methodology.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42572348 and 42307226), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20230857).

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