Fractal characteristics and acoustic emission of coal containing methane in triaxial compression failure

• Conducted experiments on coal containing methane under triaxial compression.
• Analyzed load and acoustic emission changes with time in the failure process.
• Studied fractal characteristics of AE.
• Discussed the methane effects on the mechanical properties of coal, damage evolution, AE responses, fractal characteristics.

Aimed at exploring the influence of methane to coal and studying fractal characteristics and acoustic emission (AE) features in the damage evolution, the triaxial compression experiments of coal containing methane were conducted, and acoustic emission response was collected simultaneously in the loading process. Based on the method for calculating the correlation dimension, the fractal dimension was calculated with regard to time series of acoustic emission. Our experimental results indicate that AE response and fractal dimension can reflect the evolution and propagation of cracks in the loading process. Corresponding to the load–time, acoustic emission experiences active, linearly increasing, rapidly augmenting and decreasing stage. However, the fractal dimension of AE develops from chaos to orderly state. Late loading, a continued slowdown in fractal dimension, can be used as a precursory signal of coal sample destruction. In addition, the amount of gas in the coal sample will influence the evolution of pore and fracture, which causes a variation in the acoustic emission signals and fractal dimension. The maximum bearing load reduces 18.85% and 49.18% within pore pressure of 0.75 and 1.5 MPa, compared with it (24.4 kN) of the coal sample (without gas). What's more, the increase of pore pressure will cause the growth of AE count and energy, but the correlation dimension of AE parameters drops. This study is helpful for us to understand the effects of methane to coal and the evolution mechanism of cracks, and it can be applied to the research on occurrence mechanism and early warning of coal and gas outburst.