ABSTRACT

Rock is a kind of complex geological body, in which

many defects such as joints, fissures and openings

may grow up and merge under the external load and

environmental effect, leading to crack before ma-

croscopic damage. During the rock failure process,

elastic waves induced by micro-fracturing within the

rock will be emitted, what is called Acoustic Emis-

sion (AE) phenomenon of rock. In 1930s, Obert and

Duvall from United States Bureau of Mines found

the existence of AE activities in the internal struc-

ture of rocks under compression effect. In 1940s,

they monitored the explosive AE for prediction of

rock bursts in Amic Copper Ore (Obert & Duvall

1942). Thereafter, AE technique is widely applied to

monitor, predict and assess the stability and safety of

rockmass in the field of ore mine, coal mine, tunnel

engineering, open slope and dam foundation, etc

(Cai et al. 2004, Garabelli et al. 1990, Ishida et al.

2010, Lei et al. 2004, Wang & Ge 2008).