Application of wavelet to strength log from scratch test

This paper proposes a methodology to construct logs of rock strength from the cutting force signal recorded in scratch tests conducted in the ductile regime. The approach, which is based on the application of discrete wavelet transforms, recognizes the existence of two length scales ℓ_c and ℓ_r. The strength length scale ℓ_c represents the length over which it is meaningful to measure strength, while the repeatability length scale ℓ_r is related to the resolution at which the force signal must be observed to become insensitive to the stochastic micro-failure events triggered by the motion of the cutter. It is postulated that the original cutting force signal, assumed to be sampled at a high enough frequency, can be decomposed into a deterministic signal intrinsic to the rock and a stochastic one resulting from discrete rock failure events. The technique of multiresolution analysis based on the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform is applied as a low-pass filter to the original cutting force signals so as to wipe out the high-frequency components associated with the stochastic rock failure events. A criterion to determine the optimum cutoff frequency of the low-pass filter and the corresponding repeatability length scale is discussed in terms of the correlation coefficients between different filtered signals. It is shown that the low-pass filtered signals obtained at the optimum cutoff frequency have two salient features: (i) repeatability over different tests conducted at the same depth of cut on the same sample, and (ii) variability along the cutting distance. The excellent repeatability reveals that the deterministic background trend of the original force signals is relevant to the rock strength property, and the variability of the background trend captures the spatial variation of the rock strength.