Acoustic emission spectrum characteristics of structural coal destruction in negative pressure environment

Abstract The uniaxial compression experiments under a low-pressure environment were performed by using structural coal samples. The frequency domain response characteristics of coal mass failure under loading in a low-pressure environment were acquired by FFT transformation and wavelet packet decomposition. The results show: As the loading stress of coal increases, the AE spectrum becomes more abundant, and the whole AE spectrum shows a left-shift trend. When the gas pressure increases, the acoustic emission signals change from low-frequency high-energy to high-frequency low-energy, the frequency band gradually narrates, and the spectrum changes from complex multi-peak shape to single-peak shape. As stress increases, the proportion of energy in the band 0-4.38 kHz gradually increases, while that in other bands gradually decreases. The energy response to stress changes in the two frequency bands of 2.92-4.38 kHz and 4.38-5.84 kHz is the most obvious. When the pressure changes, the energy in three frequency bands of 2.92-4.38 kHz, 4.38-5.84 kHz, and 7.3-8.76 kHz present an evident response trend with the pressure change, and the response trend (increase) of the latter two is exactly opposite (decrease) to that of the former. This phenomenon indicates that 2.92-4.38 kHz and 4.38-5.84 kHz are the characteristic frequency bands of the coal fracture process. The findings of this research offer crucial foundational data to support the monitoring and early warning of coal and gas outburst hazards.