The law of specific surface energy variation during the adsorption process is an important basis for studying the mechanisms of coal gas adsorption. Based on the theory of adsorption energy, eight coal samples with different ranks were analyzed using an isothermal adsorption experiment at three different temperatures (30, 40, and 50 °C) and six different pressures (0.1, 0.2, 0.6, 1.0, 1.4, and 1.8 MPa). Then, the single-layer adsorption model and multilayer adsorption model were used to calculate the energy variation during the adsorption process. Just like the adsorption capacity, it is clear that the specific surface energy is inversely proportional to temperature and proportional to gas pressure. The energy difference between the single-layer adsorption and the multilayer adsorption calculation is large. Therefore, the adsorption energy was calculated based on the calorific value, and the comparative analysis shows that the specific surface energy based on the multilayer adsorption model can better reflect the gas adsorption capacity than the single-layer adsorption model. The mechanisms of gas adsorption were explored, such as intermolecular force, energy variation, and specific surface area. The adsorption energy was simulated, which indicated that the energy variation is affected by both coal physical properties and internal chemical structure.

In order to describe resistivity variation regularities during the process of damage evolution of loading coal mass more comprehensively and accurately, electrical resistivity and acoustic emission (AE) characteristics of coal mass were tested by 3532-50 LCR tester and AMSY-6 AE data acquisition system under the condition of multi-stage loading, and resistivity variation characteristics were analyzed with stress changing. The damage evolution process of coal mass was studied by the measurement of the AE parameters, and the resistivity curve was obtained in the damage conditions based on the relationship between the AE damage variable and the resistivity. The results show that resistivity and stress curves of coal mass have a good correspondence during the multi-stage loading, and the resistivity shows a trend of fluctuating downward with the increasing of stress. The resistivity increases sharply to the maximum value when the load increases to the ultimate compressive strength of specimens. AE information can reveal effectively damage evolution process of microcracks formation, expansion and fracture in coal mass under external force, and during multi-stage loading, the cumulative AE ringing counts curve of coal mass have three different types of growth trends: stable stage, sudden change stage, gradual increasing stage. Meanwhile, the relationship between resistivity and AE damage variable is established based on the formula of damage variable under uniaxial compression and combined with continuous damage mechanics, and its rationality is verified.

Creep behavior is one of the most important mechanical behaviors of coal. In the present study, we systematically carried out a series of creep experiments of briquette samples under triaxial compression and gas pressure. The experimental results showed that the creep deformation characteristics of coal were related to deviatoric stress and gas pressure. The accelerating creep stage initiated when the deviatoric stress reached or exceeded the yield stress until failure took place. In contrast, when the deviatoric stress was less than the yield strength, only transient and steady creep stage occurred. Besides, gas pressure played a positive role in the creep process of coal. The axial strain of coal slightly increased with gas pressure (range from 0.13 to 0.40 MPa) when the effective triaxial stress remained constant. For example, in the steady creep stage (σ₁ = 9 MPa, p = 0.13 MPa), the axial strain of sample S₁ is 2.710% and that of sample S₂ is 3.361%, that is, coal samples with high gas pressure have higher axial strain. Moreover, gas pressure has two main effects on the mechanical behavior of coal. One is that the coal adsorbs gas molecules resulting in swelling strain and swelling stress, and the other is that the gas pressure may compress the coal particles. Considering the swelling stress and gas pressure, we intensively studied the effective stress formula of coal containing gas. Then, the effective stress was taken into consideration in the nonlinear Nishihara creep model. Furthermore, the tertiary creep factor n was introduced in the nonlinear model to control the creep deformation evolution with time so that the nonlinear model could accurately describe the full creep stage of coal. In contrast, due to the lack of such a controlling parameter, the Nishihara model failed to reproduce the accelerating creep stage.