Experimental Study on the Damage Evolution of Gas-Bearing Coal and Its Electric Potential Response

Previous studies indicate that an electric potential (EP) signal is generated during the loading process of coal and that the EP response is related to the damage evolution. When coupled with gas, EP changes the pore structure and mechanical properties of a coal mass, promoting crack generation and growth and accelerating damage evolution. To study the EP response characteristics and investigate the damage of gas-bearing coal, a triaxial test was carried out with a gas- controlled confining pressure, and multiple types of data were measured and analyzed. The results show that with the change in stress, the EP response increases and fluctuates. This response reflects the stress and reveals the damage evolution, which could be verified with the variation in the acoustic emission response. For the mechanism analyses, the failure of the sample is caused by crack expansion and propagation under the coupling action of stress and gas. Consequently, microscopic charge separation and electron emission are the dominant mechanisms controlling the EP response. Furthermore, the constitutive damage equation of gas-bearing coal is established based on the EP response in view of continuous damage theory and the stress intensity distribution hypothesis. The calculation results of damage and stress based on the EP response are utilized for verification; the results indicate that the damage expressed by the EP response is reasonable and useful. This finding is helpful for understanding the damage evolution mechanism of gas-bearing coal.