Mechanical properties and energy development characteristics of impact-prone coal specimens under uniaxial cyclic loading

Energy is the intrinsic driving factor of rock dynamic failure. In this paper, the mechanical properties and energy development characteristics of impact-prone coal are studied. The stress and strain data and the acoustic emission (AE) signals of the impact-prone coal specimens are obtained by conducting cyclic loading-unloading tests. The elastic modulus deterioration rate is defined to describe the deterioration of the mechanical properties of the specimens during the loading process. The calculation results show that the elastic modulus deterioration rate of the impact-prone coal specimens during the cyclic loading process is as low as 3%. The AE monitoring results show that the AE signal is rare in the loading-unloading cycle before failure, and a large number of AE signals are generated at the failure moment. The stress-strain data are used to analyze the energy storage and distribution law of the loading process of impact-prone coal specimens. The results show that the input energy density increases nonlinearly with the increase of the load, and the input energy is mostly stored in the rock as elastic strain energy. The dissipative energy density is linear with the axial load. The impact-prone coal specimens have a strong ability to store elastic energy, and the precursor of damage and failure is not obvious. The study in this paper reveals the cause of the impact-prone coal easily induced to coal bursts from the energy point of view.