ABSTRACT
The problem of assessing the state of stress in mine workings is vital for safe underground mining. The main source of information about a local stress field is usually obtained from measurements on the walls of underground galleries or in boreholes. An alternative to these methods are non-destructive short-term geophysical methods calibrated with a small amount of information from drilled wells and used to monitor stress conditions. Of this category, the greatest attention was paid to the method of acoustic emission and the method of electromagnetic radiation. Both of these phenomena are caused by the rock fracturing. This paper considers the physical basis for the application of acoustic emission in underground conditions based on a modern understanding of the phenomenon and its features.
