Research on damage evolution of deep formation rock based on acoustic emission test

The study of rock damage evolution is of great significance in the field of underground engineering. In this paper, the damage development of deep formation rock was quantitatively evaluated by acoustic emission (AE) test. The Young’s modulus of the test rock specimens under ideal intact state was obtained by assuming a linear relationship between the AE rate parameter and the damage variation based on the rate process theory. Through the multi-stage cyclic loading test, the damage parameters corresponding to the peak stress of the previous stage were calculated by using the tangent modulus at the initial moment. The results showed that there was abrupt transition stage of damage development with the linear increase of stress. The damage parameter curves of rock specimens during loading process were obtained by using the method of cumulative AE energy, and the development trend of the curves was analyzed simply by combining the concepts of crack initiation stress and crack damage stress. Comparing the two methods of obtaining damage parameters by using cyclic loading test and cumulative AE energy, the results of them were highly consistent except for some deviation in the initial and final stages.

Failure Behavior and Damage Characteristics of Coal at Different Depths under Triaxial Unloading Based on Acoustic Emission

The depth effect of coal mechanical behavior seriously affects the safety and efficiency of deep coal mining. To explore the differences in failure behavior and damage characteristics of coal masses at different depths during the coal mining process, based on the consideration of in situ stress environment, physical properties, and mining disturbance of coal seams, triaxial unloading experiments with acoustic emission (AE) monitoring were conducted on coal samples at four different depths taken from the Pingdingshan coal mine area. The results showed that the AE activity of deep coal was more concentrated, and the cumulative AE energy of coal increased with increasing depth. The cumulative AE energy of the 1050-m coal sample was 69 times that of the 300-m coal sample. The b value representing the microcrack scale decreased with increasing depth, and the rupture degree of deep coal increased. The cracking mode of coal was classified and the failure behavior was analyzed. The cumulative tensile crack percentage of coal increased with increasing depth, and the tensile–shear composite failure occurred in the 300-m coal sample, whereas significant tensile failure occurred in the 1050-m coal sample. In addition, the damage evolution process of coal was divided into three stages, and the characteristic stress of coal was obtained. The ratio of crack initiation stress (σci) to peak stress (σc) increased with increasing depth, and the damage evolution process of deep coal was more rapid. The research results can provide useful guidance for disaster prevention and evaluation of surrounding rock stability during deep coal resource mining in the Pingdingshan coal mine area.

Acoustic Emission Experimental Research of the Damage Characteristics of Raw Coal under Different Loading and Unloading Rates

In this study, triaxial load failure experiments of coal samples under different strain rates and different confining pressure unloading rates were carried out using an RTX-1000 rock triaxial apparatus, and the acoustic emission characteristic parameters of a Micro-II acoustic emission imaging acquisition instrument were used to study the acoustic emission characteristics and damage deformation law of coals under different conditions. Damage models were constructed on the basis of the characteristic parameters to analyze the damage law of coal samples. Experimental results show that the acoustic emission (AE) counts and AE energy of the coal samples decrease, but the peak AE counts and peak AE energy increase with the increase in strain rates. The cumulative AE counts decrease from 9902 times to 6899 times, the peak counts increase from 209 times to 431 times, the cumulative AE energy decreases from 6986 aJ to 3786 aJ, and the peak AE energy increases from 129 aJ to 312 aJ. The overall level of the AE count rates and the AE energy of the coal samples decrease, but the peak AE counts and peak AE energy increase with the increase in unloading rates. The cumulative AE counts decrease from 18,689 times to 16,842 times, the peak AE count rates increase from 245 times/s to 535 times/s, the cumulative AE energy decreases from 9846 aJ to 7430 aJ, and the peak energy increases from 257 aJ to 587 aJ. The damage models are constructed on the basis of AE counts, and the comparative experimental and theoretical curves are analyzed to obtain a higher fitness close to 1. The damage threshold increases from 0.30 to 0.50 and from 0.34 to 0.55, and the damage amount increases from 0.50 to 0.60 and from 0.34 to 0.62 with the increase in strain rates and unloading rates. The research results have practical significance for revealing the mechanism of disaster occurrence in actual engineering excavation and proposing engineering measures to prevent coal rock damage and disaster occurrence.

Tensile Properties Analysis Of 3D Flat-Knitted Inlay Fabric Reinforced Composites Using Acoustic Emission

In this work, based on the quasi-static tensile test and acoustic emission technology, the tensile properties of two types of three-dimensional flat-knitted inlay fabrics reinforced composites are investigated, and the acoustic emission characteristic parameters of various damage mechanisms are obtained. The transverse tensile process of specimens could be divided into the elastic stage, yield stage, and fracture stage. We found that, compared with the fluctuation of the stress-strain curve in the yield stage, weft insertion yarns in composite with interlock structure broke almost simultaneously, while the composite with plain stitch broke successively. The transverse and longitudinal tensile strength of the composite with interlock structure was 44.70% and 28.63% higher than the composite with plain structure, respectively. The SEM micrographs showed that the damage mechanism of the composites was matrix fracture, fiber-matrix debonding, and fiber breakage. The amplitude ranges of the three damage mechanisms were 50–65 dB, 65–80 dB, and 90–100 dB, respectively, and the frequency ranges were 35–114 kHz, 116–187 kHz, and 252–281 kHz, respectively. Fiber-matrix debonding and matrix fracture had large cumulative AE energy, numerous events, and long duration time, while fiber breakage had the characteristics of large amplitude, high frequency, low cumulative AE energy, few events, and short duration time.

Scale Effect on the Anisotropy of Acoustic Emission in Coal

Acoustic emission (AE) in coal is anisotropic. In this paper, we investigate the microstructure-related scale effect on the anisotropic AE feature in coal at unconfined loading process. A series of coal specimens were processed with diameters of 25 mm, 38 mm, 50 mm, and 75 mm (height to diameter ratio of 2) and anisotropic angles of 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°. The cumulative AE counts and energy dissipation increase with the specimen size, while the energy dissipation per AE count behaves in the opposite way. This may result from the increasing amount of both preexisting discontinuities and cracks (volume/number) needed for specimen failure and the lower energy dissipation AE counts generated by them. The effect of microstructures on the anisotropies of AE weakens with the increasing specimen size. The TRFD and its anisotropy reduce as the specimen size increases, and the reduction of fractal dimension is most pronounced at the anisotropic angle of 45°. The correlation between TRFD and cumulative AE energy in the specimens with different sizes are separately consistent with the negative exponential equation proposed by Xie and Pariseau. With the specimen size gain, the reduction of the TRFD weakens with the increasing amount of cumulative absolute AE energy.

Experimental Investigation of Mechanical Properties of Black Shales after CO2-Water-Rock Interaction

The effects of CO2-water-rock interactions on the mechanical properties of shale are essential for estimating the possibility of sequestrating CO2 in shale reservoirs. In this study, uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) tests together with an acoustic emission (AE) system and SEM & EDS analysis were performed to investigate the mechanical properties and microstructural changes of black shales with different saturation times (10 days, 20 days and 30 days) in water dissoluted with sub-/super-critical CO2. According to the experimental results, the values of UCS, Young’s modulus and brittleness index decrease gradually with increasing saturation time in water with sub-/super-critical CO2. Compared to intact samples, 30-days’ saturation causes reductions of 56.43% in UCS and 54.21% in Young’s modulus for sub-critical saturated samples, and 66.05% in UCS and 56.32% in Young’s modulus for super-critical saturated samples, respectively. The brittleness index also decreases drastically from 84.3% for intact samples to 50.9% for samples saturated in water with sub-critical CO2, to 47.9% for samples saturated in water with super-critical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2). SC-CO2 causes a greater reduction of shale’s mechanical properties. The crack propagation results obtained from the AE system show that longer saturation time produces higher peak cumulative AE energy. SEM images show that many pores occur when shale samples are saturated in water with sub-/super-critical CO2. The EDS results show that CO2-water-rock interactions increase the percentages of C and Fe and decrease the percentages of Al and K on the surface of saturated samples when compared to intact samples.

Influence of specimen height-to-width ratio on the strainburst characteristics of Tianhu granite under true-triaxial unloading conditions

Strainbursts occur frequently near excavation boundaries, posing a significant threat to the safety of workers and stability of underground structures. A better understanding of the strainburst phenomenon is important for safe underground construction and risk management. This paper presents the results of an experimental study on strainburst behaviours of Tianhu granite with four specimen height-to-width (H/W) ratios. A series of tests under unloading conditions were conducted using a true-triaxial strainburst test system that was equipped with an acoustic emission (AE) monitoring system. A high-speed camera was used to capture the instantaneous strainburst process of the specimens on the unloading surface. The experimental results indicate that regardless of the H/W ratio, strainbursts occurred in all specimens but strainburst characteristics depend on the H/W ratio. When the H/W ratio changes from 2.5 to 1.0, the dynamic failure process of the unloading surface transforms from local rock ejection to full-face burst. The strainburst is more violent when the H/W ratio is small. Analysis of the cumulative AE energy revealed that the cumulative AE energy is not sensitive to the H/W ratio for ratios lower than 1.5. When the H/W ratio is greater than 1.5, the cumulative AE energy shows a decreasing trend during rock failure.

Detection of Kaiser Effect in Marbles under Brazilian Tests

Kaiser effect was noticed while submitting marble samples to Brazilian tests. An automatic data acquisition system was applied by means of analog to digital conversion, upon recording analog signals of stress, strain and acoustic emission (AE) emitted from Portuguese marble specimens under diametrical loadings in different loading cycles. Results confirm that the Kaiser effect was pronounced and was easy to be detected under Brazilian tests with a felicity ratio varied from 0.92 to 1.09. This means it is possible to measure the pre-existing stresses in rocks under complex states of stress by means of other tests besides uniaxial compression. Results also show that cumulative AE events vs. stress curve is more suitable for Kaiser effect recognition than cumulative AE energy vs. stress curve as every event has different scales of energy.