Mechanical properties and acoustic emission characteristics of soft rock with different water contents under dynamic disturbance

Uniaxial compression tests and cyclic loading acoustic emission tests were conducted on 20%,40%,60%,80%,dry and saturated muddy sandstone by using a creep impact loading system to investigate the mechanical properties and acoustic emission characteristics of soft rocks with different water contents under dynamic disturbance.The mechanical properties and acoustic emission characteristics of muddy sandstones at different water contents were analysed.Results of experimental studies show that water is a key factor in the mechanical properties of rocks,softening them,increasing their porosity,reducing their brittleness and increasing their plasticity.Under uniaxial compression,the macroscopic damage characteristics of the muddy sandstone change from mono-bevel shear damage and‘X’type conjugate bevel shear damage to a roadway bottom-drum type damage as the water content increases.Dynamic perturbation has a strengthening effect on the mechanical properties of samples with 60%and less water content,and a weakening effect on samples with 80%and more water content,but the weakening effect is not obvious.Macroscopic damage characteristics of dry samples remain unchanged,water samples from shear damage and tensile–shear composite damage gradually transformed into cleavage damage,until saturation transformation monoclinic shear damage.The evolution of acoustic emission energy and event number is mainly divided into four stages:loading stage(Ⅰ),dynamic loading stage(Ⅱ),yield failure stage(Ⅲ),and post-peak stage(Ⅳ),the acoustic emission characteristics of the stages were different for different water contents.The characteristic value of acoustic emission key point frequency gradually decreases,and the damage degree of the specimen increases,corresponding to low water content—high main frequency—low damage and high water content—low main frequency—high damage.

Identifying the real fracture hidden in rock microcrack zone by acoustic emission energy

Identifying the real fracture of rock hidden in acoustic emission(AE)source clusters(AE-depicted microcrack zone)remains challenging and crucial.Here we revealed the AE energy(representing dissipated energy)distribution rule in the rock microcrack zone and proposed an AE-energy-based method for identifying the real fracture.(1)A set of fracture experiments were performed on granite using wedgeloading,and the fracture process was detected and recorded by AE.The microcrack zone associated with the energy dissipation was characterized by AE sources and energy distribution,utilizing our selfdeveloped AE analysis program(RockAE).(2)The accumulated AE energy,an index representing energy dissipation,across the AE-depicted microcrack zone followed the normal distribution model(the mean and variance relate to the real fracture path and the microcrack zone width).This result implies that the nucleation and coalescence of massive cracks(i.e.,real fracture generation process)are supposed to follow a normal distribution.(3)Then,we obtained the real fracture extension path by joining the peak positions of the AE energy normal distribution curve at different cross-sections of the microcrack zone.Consequently,we distinguished between the microcrack zone and the concealed real fracture within it.The deviation was validated as slight as 1–3 mm.

Characteristic stress variation and microcrack evolution of granite subjected to uniaxial compression using acoustic emission methods

The size of mineral grain has a significant impact on the initiation and propagation of microcracks within rocks.In this study,fine-,medium-,and coarse-grained granites were used to investigate microcrack evolution and characteristic stress under uniaxial compression using the acoustic emission(AE),digital image correlation(DIC),and nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR)measurements.The experimental results show that the characteristic stress of each granite decreased considerably with increasing grain sizes.The inflection points of the b-value occurred earlier with an increase in grain sizes,indicating that the larger grains promote the generation and propagation of microcracks.The distribution characteristics of the average frequency(AF)and the ratio of rise time to amplitude(RA)indicate that the proportion of shear microcracks increases with increasing grain size.The NMR results indicate that the porosity and the proportion of large pores increased with increasing grain size,which may intensify the microcrack evolution.Moreover,analysis of the DIC and AE event rates suggests that the high-displacement regions could serve as a criterion for the degree of microcrack propagation.The study found that granites with larger grains had a higher proportion of high-displacement regions,which can lead to larger-scale cracking or even spalling.These findings are not only beneficial to understand the pattern of microcrack evolution with different grain sizes,but also provide guidance for rock monitoring and instability assessment.

Mechanical anisotropy associated with beddings in shale under Brazilian test conditions:Insights from acoustic emission statistics

A comprehensive understanding of shale’s bedding anisotropy is crucial for shale-related engineering activities,such as hydraulic fracturing,drilling and underground excavation.In this study,seven Brazilian tests were conducted on shale samples at different bedding orientations with respect to the loading direction(0°,45°and 90°)and the disc end face(0°,45°and 90°).An acoustic emission(AE)system was employed to capture the evolution of damage and the temporal-spatial distribution of microcracks under splitting-tensile stress.The results show that the Brazilian tensile strength decreases with increasing bedding inclination with respect to the disc end face,while it increases with the angle between bedding and loading directions.Increasing the bedding inclination with respect to the end face facilitates the reduction in b value and enhances the shale’s resistance to microcrack growth during the loading process.Misalignment between the bedding orientation and the end face suppresses the growth of mixed tensile-shear microcracks,while reducing the bedding angle relative to the loading direction is beneficial for creating mixed tensile-shear and tensile cracks.The observed microscopic failure characteristics are attributed to the competing effects of bedding activation and breakage of shale matrix at different bedding inclinations.The temporal-spatial distribution of microcracks,characterized by AE statistics including the correlation dimension and spatial correlation length,illustrates that the fractal evolution of microcracks is independent of bedding anisotropy,whereas the spatial distribution shows a stronger correlation.The evolution features of correlation dimension and spatial correlation length could be potentially used as precursors for shale splitting failure.These findings may be useful for predicting rock mass instability and analyzing the causes of catastrophic rupture.

Shear band evolution and acoustic emission characteristics of sandstone containing non-persistent flaws

Direct shear tests were conducted on sandstone specimens under different constant normal stresses to study the coalescence of cracks between non-persistent flaws and the shear sliding characteristics of the shear-formed fault.Digital image correlation and acoustic emission(AE)techniques were used to monitor the evolution of shear bands at the rock bridge area and microcracking behaviors.The experimental results revealed that the shear stresses corresponding to the peak and sub-peak in the stressdisplacement curve are significantly affected by the normal stress.Strain localization bands emerged at both the tip of joints and the rock bridge,and their extension and interaction near the peak stress caused a surge in the AE hit rate and a significant decrease in the AE b value.Short and curvilinear strain bands were detected at low normal stress,while high normal stress generally led to more microcracking events and longer coplanar cracks at the rock bridge area.Furthermore,an increase in normal stress resulted in a higher AE count rate and more energetic AE events during friction sliding along the shearformed fault.It was observed that the elastic energy released during the crack coalescence at the prepeak stage was much greater than that released during friction sliding at the post-peak stage.More than 75%of AE events were located in the low-frequency band(0e100 kHz),and this proportion continued to rise with increasing normal stress.Moreover,more AE events of low AF value and high RA value were observed in specimens subjected to high normal stress,indicating that greater normal stress led to more microcracks of shear nature.

Enhancing microseismic/acoustic emission source localization accuracy with an outlier-robust kernel density estimation approach

Monitoring sensors in complex engineering environments often record abnormal data,leading to significant positioning errors.To reduce the influence of abnormal arrival times,we introduce an innovative,outlier-robust localization method that integrates kernel density estimation(KDE)with damping linear correction to enhance the precision of microseismic/acoustic emission(MS/AE)source positioning.Our approach systematically addresses abnormal arrival times through a three-step process:initial location by 4-arrival combinations,elimination of outliers based on three-dimensional KDE,and refinement using a linear correction with an adaptive damping factor.We validate our method through lead-breaking experiments,demonstrating over a 23%improvement in positioning accuracy with a maximum error of 9.12 mm(relative error of 15.80%)—outperforming 4 existing methods.Simulations under various system errors,outlier scales,and ratios substantiate our method’s superior performance.Field blasting experiments also confirm the practical applicability,with an average positioning error of 11.71 m(relative error of 7.59%),compared to 23.56,66.09,16.95,and 28.52 m for other methods.This research is significant as it enhances the robustness of MS/AE source localization when confronted with data anomalies.It also provides a practical solution for real-world engineering and safety monitoring applications.

Predicting microseismic,acoustic emission and electromagnetic radiation data using neural networks

Microseism,acoustic emission and electromagnetic radiation(M-A-E)data are usually used for predicting rockburst hazards.However,it is a great challenge to realize the prediction of M-A-E data.In this study,with the aid of a deep learning algorithm,a new method for the prediction of M-A-E data is proposed.In this method,an M-A-E data prediction model is built based on a variety of neural networks after analyzing numerous M-A-E data,and then the M-A-E data can be predicted.The predicted results are highly correlated with the real data collected in the field.Through field verification,the deep learning-based prediction method of M-A-E data provides quantitative prediction data for rockburst monitoring.

Damage and fracture behavior and spatio-temporal evolution of acoustic emission of sandstone before and after laser radiation

Laser technology holds significant promise for enhancing rock-breaking efficiency.Experimental investigations were carried out on sandstone subjected to laser radiation,aiming to elucidate its response mechanism to such radiation.The uniaxial compressive strength of sandstone notably decreases by 22.1%–54.7%following exposure to a 750 W laser for 30 s,indicating a substantial weakening effect.Furthermore,the elastic modulus and Poisson ratio of sandstone exhibit an average decrease of 33.7%and 25.9%,respectively.Simultaneously,laser radiation reduces the brittleness of sandstone,increases the dissipated energy proportion,and shifts the failure mode from tensile to tension-shear composite failure.Following laser radiation,both the number and energy of acoustic emission events in the sandstone register a substantial increase,with a more dispersed distribution of these events.In summary,laser radiation induces notable damage to the mechanical properties of sandstone,leading to a substantial decrease in elastic energy storage capacity.Laser rock breaking technology is expected to be applied in hard rock breaking engineering to significantly reduce the difficulty of rock breaking and improve rock breaking efficiency.

Study on Joint Method of 3D Acoustic Emission Source Localization Simplex and Grid Search Scanning

Acoustic emission(AE)source localization is a fundamental element of rock fracture damage imaging.To improve the efficiency and accuracy of AE source localization,this paper proposes a joint method comprising a three-dimensional(3D)AE source localization simplex method and grid search scanning.Using the concept of the geometry of simplexes,tetrahedral iterations were first conducted to narrow down the suspected source region.This is followed by a process of meshing the region and node searching to scan for optimal solutions,until the source location is determined.The resulting algorithm was tested using the artificial excitation source localization and uniaxial compression tests,after which the localization results were compared with the simplex and exhaustive methods.The results revealed that the localization obtained using the proposed method is more stable and can be effectively avoided compared with the simplex localization method.Furthermore,compared with the global scanning method,the proposed method is more efficient,with an average time of 10%–20%of the global scanning localization algorithm.Thus,the proposed algorithm is of great significance for laboratory research focused on locating rupture damages sustained by large-sized rock masses or test blocks.

Laboratory visualization of damage asymmetry formation of rock fracture via acoustic emission and digital imaging correlation

Rock fracture mechanics and accurate characterization of rock fracture are crucial for understanding a variety of phenomena interested in geological engineering and geoscience.These phenomena range from very large-scale asymmetrical fault structures to the scale of engineering projects and laboratory-scale rock fracture tests.Comprehensive study can involve mechanical modeling,site or post-mortem investigations,and inspection on the point cloud of the source locations in the form of earthquake,microseismicity,or acoustic emission.This study presents a comprehensive data analysis on characterizing the forming of the asymmetrical damage zone around a laboratory mixed-mode rock fracture.We substantiate the presence of asymmetrical damage through qualitative analysis and demonstrate that measurement uncertainties cannot solely explain the observed asymmetry.The implications of this demonstration can be manifold.On a larger scale,it solidifies a mechanical model used for explaining the contribution of aseismic mechanisms to asymmetrical fault structures.On a laboratory scale,it exemplifies an alternative approach to understanding the observational difference between the source location and the in situ or post-mortem inspection on the rock fracture path.The mechanical model and the data analysis can be informative to the interpretations of other engineering practices as well,but may face different types of challenges.

Acoustic emission signal identification of different rocks based on SE-1DCNN-BLSTM network model

In order to study fracture mechanism of rocks in different brittle mineral contents,this study pro-poses a method to identify the acoustic emission signal released by rock fracture under different brittle miner-al content(BMC),and then determine the content of brittle matter in rock.To understand related interference such as the noises in the acoustic emission signals released by the rock mass rupture,a 1DCNN-BLSTM network model with SE module is constructed in this study.The signal data is processed through the 1DCNN and BLSTM networks to fully extract the time-series correlation features of the signals,the non-correlated features of the local space and the weak periodicity law.Furthermore,the processed signals data is input into the fully connected layers.Finally,softmax function is used to accurately identify the acoustic emission signals released by different rocks,and then determine the content of brittle minerals contained in rocks.Through experimental comparison and analysis,1DCNN-BLSTM model embedded with SE module has good anti-noise performance,and the recognition accuracy can reach more than 90 percent,which is better than the traditional deep network models and provides a new way of thinking for rock acoustic emission re-search.

Study on Acoustic Emission Characteristics of Deformation Damage Process of Zirconia Ceramics

Zirconia ceramics have become increasingly widely used in recent years and are favored by relevant enterprises. From the traditional dental field to aerospace, parts manufacturing has been used, but there is limited research on the deformation and damage process of zirconia ceramics. This article analyzes the acoustic emission characteristics of each stage of ceramic damage from the perspective of acoustic emission, and explores its deformation process characteristics from multiple perspectives such as time domain, frequency, and EWT modal analysis. It is concluded that zirconia ceramics exhibit higher brittleness and acoustic emission strength than alumina ceramics, and when approaching the fracture, it tends to generate lower frequency acoustic emission signals.

Identification of Stability Domains for Flow Parameters in Fused Filament Fabrication Using Acoustic Emission

In Fused Filament Fabrication(FFF),the state of material flow significantly influences printing outcomes.However,online monitoring of these micro-physical processes within the extruder remains challenging.The flow state is affected by multiple parameters,with temperature and volumetric flow rate(VFR)being the most critical.The study explores the stable extrusion of flow with a highly sensitive acoustic emission(AE)sensor so that AE signals generated by the friction in the annular region can reflect the flow state more effectively.Nevertheless,the large volume and broad frequency range of the data present processing challenges.This study proposes a method that initially selects short impact signals and then uses the Fast Kurtogram(FK)to identify the frequency with the highest kurtosis for signal filtration.The results indicate that this approach significantly enhances processing speed and improves feature extraction capabilities.By correlating AE characteristics under various parameters with the quality of extruded raster beads,AE can monitor the real-time state of material flow.This study offers a concise and efficient method for monitoring the state of raster beads and demonstrates the potential of online monitoring of the flow states.

Implications for identification of principal stress directions from acoustic emission characteristics of granite under biaxial compression experiments

The rock fracture characteristics and principal stress directions are crucial for prevention of geological disasters.In this study,we carried out biaxial compression tests on cubic granite samples of 100 mm in side length with different intermediate principal stress gradients in combination with acoustic emission(AE)technique.Results show that the fracture characteristics of granite samples change from‘sudden and aggregated’to‘continuous and dispersed’with the increase of the intermediate principal stress.The effect of increasing intermediate principal stress on AE amplitude is not significant,but it increases the proportions of high-frequency AE signals and shear cracks,which in turn increases the possibility of unstable rock failure.The difference of stress in different directions causes the anisotropy of rock fracture and thus leads to the obvious anisotropic characteristics of wave velocity variations.The anisotropy of wave velocity variations with stress difference is probable to identify the principal stress directions.The AE characteristics and the anisotropy of wave velocity variations of granite under two-dimensional stress are not only beneficial complements for rock fracture characteristic and principal stress direction identification,but also can provide a new analysis method for stability monitoring in practical rock engineering.

Experiment on acoustic emission response and damage evolution characteristics of polymer-modified cemented paste backfill under uniaxial compression

The mechanical properties of cemented paste backfill(CPB)determine its control effect on the goaf roof.In this study,the mechanical strength of polymer-modified cemented paste backfill(PCPB)samples was tested by uniaxial compression tests,and the failure characteristics of PCPB under the compression were analyzed.Besides,acoustic emission(AE)technology was used to monitor and record the cracking process of the PCPB sample with a curing age of 28 d,and two AE indexes(rise angle and average frequency)were used to classify the failure modes of samples under different loading processes.The results show that waterborne epoxy resin can significantly enhance the mechanical strength of PCPB samples(when the mass ratio of polymer to powder material is 0.30,the strength of PCPB samples with a curing age of 28 d is increased by 102.6%);with the increase of polymer content,the mechanical strength of PCPB samples is improved significantly in the early and middle period of curing.Under uniaxial load,the macro cracks of PCPB samples are mostly generated along the axial direction,the main crack runs through the sample,and a large number of small cracks are distributed around the main crack.The AE response of PCPB samples during the whole loading process can be divided into four periods:quiet period,slow growth period,rapid growth period,and remission period,corresponding to the micro-pore compaction stage,elastic deformation stage,plastic deformation stage,and failure instability stage of the stress-strain curve.The AE events are mainly concentrated in the plastic deformation stage;both shear failure and tensile failure occur in the above four stages,while tensile failure is dominant for PCPB samples.This study provides a reference for the safety of coal pillar recovery in pillar goaf.

Master crack types and typical acoustic emission characteristics during rock failure

Acoustic emission(AE)signals contain substantial information about the internal fracture characteristics of rocks and are useful for revealing the laws governing the release of energy stored therein.Reported here is the evolution of rock failure with diferent master crack types as investigated using Brazilian splitting tests(BSTs),direct shear tests(DSTs),and uniaxial compression tests(UCTs).The AE parameters and typical modes of each fracture type were obtained,and the energy release characteristics of each fracture mechanism were discussed.From the observed changes in the AE parameters,the rock fracture process exhibits characteristics of staged intensifcation.The scale and energy level of crack activity in the BSTs were signifcantly lower than those in the DSTs and UCTs.The proportion of tensile cracks in the BSTs was 65%–75%,while the proportions of shear cracks in the DSTs and UCTs were 75%–85%and 70%–75%,respectively.During the rock loading process under diferent conditions,failure was accompanied by an increased number of shear cracks.The amplitude,duration,and rise time of the AE signal from rock failure were larger when the failure was dominated by shear cracks rather than tensile ones,and most of the medium-and high-energy signals had medium to low frequencies.After calculating the proposed energy amplitude ratio,the energy release of shear cracks was found to exceed that of tensile cracks at the same fracture scale.

Microscopic damage evolution of anisotropic rocks under indirect tensile conditions: Insights from acoustic emission and digital image correlation techniques

The anisotropy induced by rock bedding structures is usually manifested in the mechanical behaviors and failure modes of rocks.Brazilian tests are conducted for seven groups of shale specimens featuring different bedding angles. Acoustic emission (AE) and digital image correlation (DIC) technologies are used to monitor the in-situ failure of the specimens. Furthermore, the crack morphology of damaged samples is observed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results reveal the structural dependence on the tensile mechanical behavior of shales. The shale disk exhibits compression in the early stage of the experiment with varying locations and durations. The location of the compression area moves downward and gradually disappears when the bedding angle increases. The macroscopic failure is well characterized by AE event location results, and the dominant frequency distribution is related to the bedding angle. The b-value is found to be stress-dependent.The crack turning angle between layers and the number of cracks crossing the bedding both increase with the bedding angle, indicating competition between crack propagations. SEM results revealed that the failure modes of the samples can be classified into three types:tensile failure along beddings with shear failure of the matrix, ladder shear failure along beddings with tensile failure of the matrix, and shear failure along multiple beddings with tensile failure of the matrix.

Acoustic Emission Recognition Based on a Three-Streams Neural Network with Attention

Acoustic emission(AE)is a nondestructive real-time monitoring technology,which has been proven to be a valid way of monitoring dynamic damage to materials.The classification and recognition methods of the AE signals of the rotor are mostly focused on machine learning.Considering that the huge success of deep learning technologies,where the Recurrent Neural Network(RNN)has been widely applied to sequential classification tasks and Convolutional Neural Network(CNN)has been widely applied to image recognition tasks.A novel three-streams neural network(TSANN)model is proposed in this paper to deal with fault detection tasks.Based on residual connection and attention mechanism,each stream of the model is able to learn the most informative representation from Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient(MFCC),Tempogram,and short-time Fourier transform(STFT)spectral respectively.Experimental results show that,in comparison with traditional classification methods and single-stream CNN networks,TSANN achieves the best overall performance and the classification error rate is reduced by up to 50%,which demonstrates the availability of the model proposed.

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

The stability of coal walls(pillars)can be seriously undermined by diverse in-situ dynamic disturbances.Based on a 3D par-ticle 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 mag-nitudes 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.

Moment tensor and stress inversion solutions of acoustic emissions during compression and tensile fracturing in crystalline rocks

We investigate the accuracy and robustness of moment tensor(MT)and stress inversion solutions derived from acoustic emissions(AEs)during the laboratory fracturing of prismatic Barre granite specimens.Pre-cut flaws in the specimens introduce a complex stress field,resulting in a spatial and temporal variation of focal mechanisms.Specifically,we consider two experimental setups:(1)where the rock is loaded in compression to generate primarily shear-type fractures and(2)where the material is loaded in indirect tension to generate predominantly tensile-type fractures.In each test,we first decompose AE moment tensors into double-couple(DC)and non-DC terms and then derive unambiguous normal and slip vectors using k-means clustering and an unstructured damped stress inversion algorithm.We explore temporal and spatial distributions of DC and non-DC events at different loading levels.The majority of the DC and the tensile non-DC events cluster around the pre-cut flaws,where macro-cracks later develop.Results of stress inversion are verified against the stress field from finite element(FE)modeling.A good agreement is found between the experimentally derived and numerically simulated stress orientations.To the best of the authors’knowledge,this work presents the first case where stress inversion methodologies are validated by numerical simulations at laboratory scale and under highly heterogeneous stress distributions.