Calibrating the Grigg’s’ Apparatus using Experiments performed at the Quartz-Coesite Transition

Abstract:

The Griggs deformation apparatus is increasingly used for shear experiments. The tested material is placed on a 45° pre-cut between two forcing blocks. During the experiment, the axial displacement, load, temperature, and confining pressure are recorded as a function of time. From these records, stress, strain, and other mechanical data can be calculated - provided the machine is calibrated.

Experimentalists are well aware that calibrating a Griggs apparatus is not easy. The stiffness correction accounts for the elastic extension of the rig as load is applied to the sample. An ‘area correction’ accounts for the decreasing overlap of the forcing blocks as slip along the pre-cut progresses. Other corrections are sometimes used to account for machine specific behaviour. While the rig stiffness can be measured very accurately, the area correction involves model assumptions. Depending on the choice of the model, the calculated stresses may vary by as much as 100 MPa. Also, while the assumptions appear to be theoretically valid, in practice they tend to over-correct the data, yielding strain hardening curves even in cases where constant flow stress or weakening is expected.

Using the results of experiments on quartz gouge at the quartz-coesite transition (see Richter et al. this conference), we are now able to improve and constrain our corrections. We introduce an elastic salt correction based on the assumption that the confining pressure is increased as the piston advances and reduces the volume in the confining medium. As the compressibility of salt is low, the correction is significant and increases with strain. Applying this correction, the strain hardening artefact introduced by the area correction can be counter-balanced. Using a combination of area correction and salt correction we can now reproduce strain weakening, for which there is evidence in samples where coesite transforms back to quartz.