Mechanical responses and acoustic emission behaviors of coal under compressive differential cyclic loading (DCL): a numerical study via 3D heterogeneous particle model

Abstract

The stability of coal walls (pillars) can be seriously undermined by diverse in-situ dynamic disturbances. Based on a 3D particle model, this work strives to numerically replicate the major mechanical responses and acoustic emission (AE) behaviors of coal samples under multi-stage compressive cyclic loading with different loading and unloading rates, which is termed differential cyclic loading (DCL). A Weibull-distribution-based model with heterogeneous bond strengths is constructed by both considering the stress–strain relations and AE parameters. Six previously loaded samples were respectively grouped to indicate two DCL regimes, the damage mechanisms for the two groups are explicitly characterized via the time-stress-dependent variation of bond size multiplier, and it is found the two regimes correlate with distinct damage patterns, which involves the competition between stiffness hardening and softening. The numerical b-value is calculated based on the magnitudes of AE energy, the results show that both stress level and bond radius multiplier can impact the numerical b-value. The proposed numerical model succeeds in replicating the stress–strain relations of lab data as well as the elastic-after effect in DCL tests. The effect of damping on energy dissipation and phase shift in numerical model is summarized.