Statistical analysis of thermally induced pre-existing microcracks and their influence on fracture behaviours of granite rock

Rocks containing varying degrees of microcracks have a significant influence on their mechanical behavior. Understanding the effect of pre-existing microcracks (PEMs) on rock fracture mechanisms has scientific and practical value in areas such as geothermal energy, nuclear waste disposal and deep mining. We employed a thermally induced approach to create PEMs in granite rock, and quantified characteristic parameters of PEMs by visualization methods, focusing on the quantitative relationships between the PEMs and the mechanical strength and acoustic emission (AE) properties of the rock. We find that the distribution characteristics of thermally induced PEMs obey a lognormal distribution, and the length of individual thermally induced PEMs is almost independent of temperature. The density and orientation of PEMs together determine the variation of the longitudinal wave velocity and rock strength, with the effect of microcrack density dominating. The AE signal suggests that PEMs can affect the fracture behavior and fracture mechanism, depending on the relative dominance of pre-existing and stress-induced microcracks. The AF-RA values show that PEMs lead to an important shift in the fracture mechanism of the rock. When the microcrack density is low, tensile mode dominates the rock failure. Conversely, the shear mechanism dominates the rock fracture.