TY - JOUR
TI - Microwave heating and fracturing characteristics of basalt insights from infrared thermal imaging
AU - Tang Rui-Feng
AU - Yang Ben-Gao
AU - Yang Zhu
AU - Bai Yan-Bo
AU - Hao Hai-Chun
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2025
VL - 29
IS - 2
SP - 1449
EP - 1454
PT - Article
AB - Microwave heating is a promising assisted rock-breakage technology. However,  the non-uniform temperature distribution in microwave-heated rocks has not  been quantitatively studied. In this work, the microwave heating experiment  with power ranging from 1.5-7.5 kW was conducted to investigate the  fracturing and heating characteristics of basalt. The results show that the  fracture time of basalt decreases non-linearly with increasing power, while  the surface temperature increases linearly with irradiation time. For a  fixed time, the uniformity of temperature distribution is more affected by  power, while for a fixed input energy, the uniformity remains essen­tially  unchanged. Increasing microwave power is more effective in enhancing the  non-uniformity of temperature distribution and the increase of thermal  stress.