Investigation on acoustic emission characteristics of fault stick-slip under different lateral pressures

Abstract To explore the effect of different stress environments on fault-slip rockbursts. Bidirectional shear friction experiments with different lateral pressures were conducted on precracked syenogranites buried at 800 m. The macroscopic statistical parameters (cumulative number of AE events, magnitude and b value ) and local characteristic parameters (amplitude and dominant frequency) of acoustic emission during the stick-slip process under different lateral pressures were investigated. In addition, based on fractal theory, the nonlinear characteristics of AE spectrum were analyzed. On this basis, the microscopic mechanism of fault stick-slip was discussed. The results show that the lateral pressure influences the friction strength of the fault and stick-slip motion characteristics. With increasing lateral pressure, the proportion of transgranular shear fractures increases, which leads to an increase of cumulative number of AE events and magnitude. The periodic decrease in the b value is more significant at high lateral pressure. There is a good correlation between a high-magnitude AE event and a stress drop. The AE frequency with phased response characteristics can be used to effectively identify the evolution of fault stick-slip instability at the laboratory scale. A sharp increase in the amplitude of the dominant frequency can be regarded as one of the precursory features of fault stick-slip instability. The AE frequency spectra have multifractal characteristics, that differ among the different stages. The maximum multifractal dimension and spectral width can reflect the difference in energy released during fault stick-slip motion.