Experimental Study of the Thermal Infrared Emissivity Variation of Loaded Rock and Its Significance

Previous studies have shown that thermal infrared radiation (TIR) changes with stress for loaded rocks. TIR changes were mainly attributed to temperature change without considering the change in surface emissivity. And it remains unclear whether there was a change in emissivity during the rock loading process. Therefore, based on the spectral radiance observations in this paper, an experimental study involving the emissivity variation in the 8.0–13.0 μm range for elastic loaded quartz sandstone under outdoor conditions was conducted. The experiments yield the following results. First, a variation in the stress condition led to the emissivity change in addition to the temperature change. The spectral radiance change was the combined result of the temperature changes and emissivity changes. Second, the emissivity changes linearly with the stress change, and the amplitude is relatively large in the 8.0–10.0 μm range. The waveband features of emissivity variation are the main factor leading to the waveband features of stress-induced radiance change. Third, the explanations for the changes in temperature and emissivity during loading process are analyzed. And the significance and difficulty for further satellite remote sensing purpose is discussed. The experimental results provide an experimental foundation for crustal stress field monitoring.