Wavelet Analysis of JRC Exemplar Profiles Available to Purchase

Exemplar JRC profiles are largely used to estimate fracture surfaces roughness on an observational basis, while its subjectivity nature has been mentioned by different people. Despite many attempts to replace this with various statistical parameters, the simplicity of JRC is the main reason for its use. In this paper the digital elevations of JRC profiles were subjected to Fourier and wavelet transforms. JRC signals energy within dominant frequency band was used to characterize surface roughness. Also, JRC profiles were decomposed into its sub-signals at different frequencies with an assigned energy level corresponding to the amount of its frequency changes, i.e. profile waviness and roughness. Comparing the results for ten profiles indicates that despite the initial intention of increasing roughness as JRC increases the order of JRC profiles changes unexpectedly; for example JRC8 is less rough than JRC6. This demonstrates the difficulty associated with using JRC to determine fracture surface roughness.