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).