Nonlinear Viscoelastic-Plastic Creep Model Based on Coal Multistage Creep Tests and Experimental Validation

The development of fractures, which determine the complexity of coal creep characteristics, is the main physical property of coal relative to other rocks. This study conducted a series of multistage creep tests to investigate the creep behavior of coal under different stress levels. A negative elastic modulus and a non-Newtonian component were introduced into the classical Nishihara model based on the theoretical analysis of the experimental results to propose a nonlinear viscoelastic-plastic creep model for describing the non-decay creep behavior of coal. The validity of the model was verified by experimental data. The results show that this improved model can preferably exhibit decelerating, steady state, and accelerating creep behavior during the non-decay creep process. The fitting accuracy of the improved model was significantly higher than that of the classical Nishihara model. Given that acceleration creep is a critical stage in predicting the instability and failure of coal, its successful description using this improved model is crucial for the prevention and control of coal dynamic disasters.