Predicting points of the infrared precursor for limestone failure under uniaxial compression

•The image subtraction method was used to process the IRR image on the rock surface.•The evolution characters of IRR was used to analyse the precursor of rock failure.•The temperature variations were evaluated in different regions of rock surface.•The temperature variations were regarded to cause by the rock stress concentration.•The proposed stress-strength ratio of predicting points were 85.2% and 89.5%.