Evaluating Thermal Properties of Rock

Abstract

Application of thermography in material identification and characterization has been applied in this work. Nigeria geological set up comprises broadly sedimentary formation and crystalline basement complex, which occur more or less in equal proportion all over the country. The models generated in this work can be used to identify/characterise rock types. The coefficients of the generalized model give the thermal properties of each rock type. The chi-square test showed that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) between the expected and observed data for all the models. The model developed in this work enabled us to use simulation prediction as the basis for rock identification, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible to perform.

Keyword: Thermography, Quartz, Graphite, Limestone, Iron Ore

Journal of the Nigerian Association of Mathematical Physics, Volume 20 (March, 2012), pp 321 – 330