Effects of high-temperature heating and cryogenic quenching on the physico-mechanical properties of limestone

Abstract

This paper is designed to investigate the influence of high-temperature heating and cryogenic quenching using liquid nitrogen (LIN) cooling on the physico-mechanical properties of limestone such as compressive strength, tensile strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and morphological characterization. The main aim is to provide a better understanding on influence of the temperature shock including high temperature pre-treatments and combined process with heating followed by LIN quenching on the physico-mechanical properties of rock. The samples were subjected to different thermal treatment using high-temperature of 100 °C, 200 °C, 400 °C and 600 °C for 4 h. In addition, the combined process of heating at 600 °C for 4 h and LIN quenching for 15 min, 30 min, 45 min and 60 min has also been explored. The obtained results indicate that pre-treatments in limestone depict decreasing trend in strength values. Limestone samples show 62% drop in uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and 84% drop in Brazilian tensile strength (BTS) for 600 °C pre-treatment for 4 h, whereas the decrease in 70% of UCS and 89% of BTS are also observed for the combined process with 60 min of LIN quenching. The influence of pre-treatment on UPV and microstructure of rock has been investigated in detail. Due to thermal stress, very low UPV has been obtained for the pre-treated samples compared to untreated. SEM analysis has been carried out to understand the fracture morphology for both untreated and treated rock samples.

Damage Characteristics of Thermally Deteriorated Carbonate Rocks: A Review

“…These microstructural variations immensely affect the porous network and transport properties of carbonate rocks. The porosity, permeability, and acoustic waves attenuation are the most widely studied physical parameters to evaluate the physicalmechanical behavior of carbonate rocks and other materials under undamaged or damaged conditions [7,12,13,87,[104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111].…”