Effect of horizontal stress on fractal characteristics of rockburst fragments in coal mining

Abstract

With the continuous increase in underground engineering depth, the risk of coal–rock dynamic disasters, such as rockburst, is becoming increasingly serious and complex threatening the safety of coal resources. To study the effect of horizontal stress on fractal characteristics of rockburst fragments in coal mining, this paper uses a digital drilling instrument to perform rockburst proneness tests on andesite and granite specimens with different horizontal stresses. Fractal theory is used to calculate the fractal dimension of the rockburst fragments for several combinations of parameters. The residual elastic energy index is combined with the fractal dimension of rockburst fragments to assess the propensity of rockbursts from macroscopic and microscopic perspectives. The experimental results show that the positive correlation between the fractal dimension and the AEF obtained under the two methods. The fractal dimensions of andesite and granite are 1.507–1.80 and 1.734–1.979, respectively. According to the rockburst proneness criterion, it is predicted that andesite and granite are all strong rockbursts under confining pressures of 20 MPa, 30 MPa and 50 MPa. Therefore, it is of some theoretical relevance to investigate the rockburst mechanism in terms of both the AEFand fractal dimensions of fragments under different unloading conditions.