Degradation of Rocks, Through Cracking Caused by Differential Thermal Expansion, in Relation to Nuclear Waste Repositories
ABSTRACTHeating to temperatures up to 500°C, gives a reduction in Young's modulus and increase in permeability of granitic rocks and it is likely that a major reason is grain boundary cracking. The cracking of grain boundary facets in polycrystalline multiphase materials showing anisotropic thermal expansion behaviour is controlled by several microstructural factors in addition to the intrinsic thermal and elastic properties. Of specific interest are the relative orientations of the two grains meeting at the facet, and the size of the facet; these factors thus introduce two statistical aspects to the problem and these are introduced to give quantitative data on crack density versus temperature. The theory is compared with experimental measurements of Young's modulus and permeability for various rocks as a function of temperature. There is good qualitative agreement, and the additional (mainly microstructural) data required for a quantitative comparison are defined.