Mechanical and fracture characteristics in center cracked circular discs of coal specimens with different sizes: An experimental investigation

Abstract

The propagation of cracks on a small scale can result in dynamic disasters, such as rock bursts induced by large-scale fractures in coal seams. To gain insights into the mechanism of fracture-induced disasters in deep coal seams, this study investigates the micro-process and size effect of crack propagation in coal specimens featuring different sizes of center-crack circular discs (CCCD). We conducted Brazilian splitting tests on coal samples with varying dimensions and employed acoustic emission (AE) and digital image correlation (DIC) techniques to quantitatively describe the crack propagation process. Additionally, coal specimens of different diameters were compared for the size effect characteristics of different fracture parameters during the tensile failure process. The results show that as the specimen size increases, quasi-brittle failure characteristics become pronounced, tensile strength gradually decreases and stabilizes, while fracture toughness and fracture process zone length gradually increase and tend to stabilize. The macroscopic cracks in the coal specimens generally extend from the centre of the specimen to both ends along the precracks. Large energy events are mainly concentrated at the lower end of the precracks. As coal specimen size increases, the number of AE events decreases, while the proportion of large energy events gradually increases, and the critical crack opening quantity exhibits a linear increase with specimen size. By conducting the fracture size effect experiment on coal specimens, we extend the relevant mechanical parameters from laboratory-scale tests to field engineering scales. This provides fundamental parameters for the analysis of large-scale fracture process of in-situ coal based on fracture mechanics.