Failure characteristic and acoustic emission spatio‐temporal evolution of coal under different cyclic loading rates

The coal and rock dynamic disasters occur more and more frequently in deep mining, which is tightly correlated to the instability of coal pillars under high stress and cyclic disturbance load. In this study, the strength, deformation behaviors, and failure mechanism of coal under cyclic loading in a high‐stress state were investigated by considering the influence of cyclic loading rate. The experimental results indicate that the compressive strength is positively correlated with the cyclic loading rate, and the deformation patterns, AE amplitude, and spatial evolution are the same under various cyclic loading rates. The damage variable shows the “slow increase→fast increase→slow increase→ fast increase →slow increase→fast increase→rapid increase” trend. The damage growth rate ranges from 9.32 × 10−5 to 4.86 × 10−3, and increases with the cyclic loading rate. The spatial fractal dimensions under various cyclic loading rates are the same, and the distribution ranges from 2.1 to 2.9, showing a general downward trend. The microfailure mechanism under various cyclic loading rates is mixed failure dominated by tensile failure, with a small amount of shear failure. There is a positive correlation between the percentage of shear cracks and the cyclic loading rates. 1. The mechanical behaviors of deep coal are influenced by cyclic loading rate. 2. The AE evolution of deep coal with different cyclic loading rates is obtained. 3. The microfailure mechanism of deep coal under cyclic loading is studied.