Damage stress and acoustic emission characteristics of the Beishan granite

• Crack initiation stress (σci) and crack damage stress (σcd) of the Beishan granite under uniaxial and triaxial compressions are determined.
• 3D distributions of AE events in the rock samples at different loading stages in the compression tests are obtained.
• Methods of indentifying σci and σcd at different confinements are discussed.
• Confinement-dependent damage stress characteristics are analyzed.