Anisotropy of crack initiation strength and damage strength of coal reservoirs

Abstract

Abstract The crack volume strain method and acoustic emission (AE) method are used to analyze the anisotropy of the crack initiation strength, damage strength, the failure mode and the AE characteristics of coal reservoir. The results show that coal reservoirs show obvious anisotropic characteristics in compressive strength, cracking initiation strength and damage strength. The compressive strength of coal reservoirs decreases with the increase of bedding angle, but the reservoirs with bedding angles of 45° and 90° differ little in compressive strength. The crack initiation strength and damage strength decrease first and then increase with the increase of bedding angle. The crack initiation strength and damage strength are the highest, at the bedding angle of 0°, moderate at the bedding angle of 90°, and lowest at the bedding angle of 45°. When the bedding angle is 0°, the failure of the coal reservoirs is mainly steady propagation of large-scale fractures. When the bedding angle is 45°, one type of failure is caused by steady propagation of small-scale fractures, and the other type of failure is due to a sudden instability of large-scale fractures. When the bedding angle is 90°, the failure is mainly demonstrated by a sudden-instability of small-scale fractures. Compared with the cumulative count method of the AE, the cumulative energy method is more suitable for determining crack initiation strength and damage strength of coal reservoirs.