Characteristic strength and acoustic emission properties of weakly cemented sandstone at different depths under uniaxial compression

Abstract As coal mining is extended from shallow to deep areas along the western coalfield, it is of great significance to study weakly cemented sandstone at different depths for underground mining engineering. Sandstones from depths of 101.5, 203.2, 317.3, 406.9, 509.9 and 589.8 m at the Buertai Coal Mine were collected. The characteristic strength, acoustic emission (AE), and energy evolution of sandstone during uniaxial compression tests were analyzed. The results show that the intermediate frequency (125–275 kHz) of shallow rock mainly occurs in the postpeak stage, while deep rock occurs in the prepeak stage. The initiation strength and damage strength of the sandstone at different depths range from 0.23 to 0.50 and 0.63 to 0.84 of peak strength ( σ c ), respectively, decrease exponentially and are a power function with depth. The precursor strength ranges from 0.88 σ c to 0.99 σ c , increases with depth before reaching a depth of 300 m, and tends to stabilize after 300 m. The ratio of the initiation strength to the damage strength ( k ) ranges from 0.25 to 0.62 and decreases exponentially with depth. The failure modes of sandstone at different depths are tension-dominated mixed tensile-shear failure. Shear failure mainly occurs at the unstable crack propagation stage. The count of the shear failure bands before the peak strength increases gradually, and increases first and then decreases after the peak strength with burial depth. The cumulative input energy, released elastic energy and dissipated energy increase with depth. The elastic release rate ranges from 0.46 × 10 –3 to 198.57 × 10 –3 J/(cm 3 s) and increases exponentially with depth.