Experimental investigation on the effect of open fire on the tensile properties and damage evolution behavior of granite

Abstract

The stability of rock mass after fire is a concern of many engineering projects. In this paper, the effects of open fire and different cooling methods on granites were investigated. The static Brazilian test, dynamic Brazilian test, and P-wave velocity test were carried out to evaluate the mechanical properties and damage evolution behavior. A high-speed camera is employed to monitor the failure process of rock. The microstructures of the treated granites were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results showed that the fire duration and cooling treatment have a significant effect on the P-wave velocity, static nominal tensile strength, and dynamic nominal tensile strength of granite. These characteristics decrease rapidly during 0 to 10 min, and slowly decrease after 20 min. Compared to the air-cooling treatment, the water-cooling treatment has greater damage to the heated granite. To better understand the results, the rapid heating process of open fire heating was simulated using Abaqus software. The results reveal that there is a thinner compressive stress zone at the bottom of the specimen, and there is a large zone in the middle of the sample with higher tensile stress. The crack extension would be expanded due to high tensile stress, leading to the reduction of the tensile strength of the rock. This paper aims to better predict the degree of damage of rock materials after actual fire, as well as preliminarily explore the effect of the fire exposure duration and fire extinguishing method on the tensile properties of rock.