Journal article
Microwave-assisted damage and fracturing of hard rocks and its implications for effective mineral resources recovery
T Xu, Y Yuan, MJ Heap, GL Zhou, MSA Perera, PG Ranjith
Minerals Engineering | PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2021
Abstract
Microwave radiation can be used to pre-damage hard rock to reduce the cost of drilling and excavation typically required in tunneling, mining, and deep Earth energy recovery. A 3D damage-based, electromagnetic-thermo-mechanical coupled model to simulate damage and fracturing of rock under microwave radiation is proposed in this manuscript. The model is first validated against experimental test and then used to simulate the damage and fracturing of rock under microwave radiation at various microwave power levels and radiation times. The simulations show that the distribution of temperature in the rock sample is extremely non-uniform, resulting in high thermal gradients that can damage and/or ..
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Awarded by Providence Health Care
Funding Acknowledgements
Support was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51974062, 41672301 and 51950410595), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (N180101028), and a Partenariats Hubert Curien (PHC) Cai Yuanpei grant (36605ZB). In addition, the authors are thankful for the experimental help provided by Prof. Yuanhui Li and Dr. Gaoming Lu from Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education on Safe Mining of Deep Metal Mines, Northeastern University. Bertrand Renaudie is thanked for preparing the experimental samples at IPG Strasbourg. The comments of an anonymous reviewer helped improve this manuscript.