Failure mechanisms of energy redistribution in excavation roadways: experimental and numerical investigation

The persistent occurrence of rock burst phenomena during roadway excavation poses a critical safety challenge in modern underground mining operations. This research systematically investigates zonal evolution patterns of acoustic emission (AE) events, developing quantitative indicators to evaluate rock burst risks and progressive damage quantification in surrounding rocks and reveals the failure mechanisms with rock burst. The results show that the elastic strain energy in the surrounding rock instantly releases suddenly, causing the deformation and failure of the shallow damaged surrounding rock and inducing rock burst in the excavation roadway. In horizontal, the risk of rock burst increases with the increase of horizontal tectonic stress; in vertical, the risk first increases and then decreases with the increase of mining disturbance stress. Dynamic stress has a significant impact on the degree of damage to the surrounding rock and increases the possibility that rock burst. The coordinated prevention and control method of "pressure relief-load reduction - reinforcement" for roadway excavation was proposed based on the energy zoning characteristics of the roadway effectively reduces the risk of rock burst during the roadway excavation process and provides certain reference experience for the prevention and control of rock burst in roadway excavation.