Abstract
The permeability of thermally cracked granites is crucial information for understanding and modeling a number of processes in the earth’s crust, such as folding, geothermal activity, magmatic intrusions, and nuclear waste disposal. Factors, including the coefficient of thermal expansion, elastic modulus, grain size, and bonding stress, have a significant impact on thermal cracking and induced permeability. We performed thermal cracking experiments on granite with different grain sizes to determine the effect of grain size on permeability. The results indicated that permeability increased with temperature up to 700 °C for all samples. The ratio of permeability at the target temperature to that at room temperature is an exponential function of temperature. Coarse-grained granite has a higher increase in permeability than fine-grained granite. A mathematical model was presented to explain the effect of grain size on thermal cracking and induced permeability. In addition, the model can also quantitatively describe the influence of the linear thermal expansion coefficient and elastic modulus of minerals on thermal cracking.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Fei Gao for assistance with the experiments. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. U1810104, 11772213, 51574173) and the Program for the Outstanding Innovative Teams of Higher Learning Institutions of Shanxi. The authors really appreciate the anonymous reviewers for the suggestions on improving the paper’s quality.
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Feng, Zj., Zhao, Ys. & Liu, Dn. Permeability Evolution of Thermally Cracked Granite with Different Grain Sizes. Rock Mech Rock Eng 54, 1953–1967 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-020-02361-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-020-02361-3