With the development of deep, underground coal mines in China, the failure mechanism of the rocks surrounding roadways is becoming increasingly complicated and the deformational control is also significantly difficult. In this study, based on the temporal and spatial deformational distribution of the deep roadway area in the 2233 working face of Fuxin Hengda Coal Mine, factors affecting the deformation and failure mechanism of deep-buried roadways, such as cohesion (c), tensile strength (${\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{t}}$), internal friction angle (φ), vertical ground stress (p), and the horizontal-to-vertical stress ratio (λ), were analyzed using orthogonal numerical experiments. The stress and electromagnetic radiation monitoring data were used to locate areas of highly concentrated deformation in the roadway and surrounding rocks. The results show that the order of the degree of influence of the surrounding rock and geometric parameters on the deformation of the deep-buried roadway is φ > p > ${\mathsf{\sigma }}_{\mathrm{t}}$ > λ > c. The vertical stress of the roof and the horizontal stress of the two sides are negatively correlated with the tensile strength and horizontal-to-vertical stress ratio, respectively, and mainly shear failure occurs in the area. The higher the level of the surrounding rock, the more serious is the deterioration and deformation. The electromagnetic radiation reflects the distribution range of the high-stress concentration area and strength deterioration area. The test results accurately describe the deformation–deterioration-failure laws of rock surrounding deep-buried roadways influenced by different factors. The results are of great significance for analyzing the deformation and failure characteristics of rocks surrounding roadways, preventing rockburst, and supporting the parameter optimization of roadways.

Drainage boreholes in soft coal seams are prone to deformation and failure under the action of in situ stress and mining stress, which has a significant impact on gas drainage in coal mines. To simulate the development and propagation of cracks around the shaft wall caused by in situ stress, the crack propagation of coals with different diameters and strengths during the failure process, and the acoustic emission (AE) and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) law and response characteristics are explored. The results show that: The failure process of coal with pores is divided into four stages: initial compaction stage (OA), elastic deformation stage (AB), yield deformation stage (BC), and macroscopic crack development stage (CD). The crack propagation develops significantly in the post-load peak stage, the coal body damage is aggravated, and the coal body is unstable and fractured. For the pre-holed coal specimens with the same diameter, as the coal becomes softer, the peak stress decreases significantly (from 15.73 to 10.05 MPa). The cumulative value of AE counts of hard coal samples increased from 2.3 × 10⁵ to 3.6 × 10⁵ with increasing diameters. The Digital Image Correlation system (DIC) strain cloud diagram found that there are ‘I’-type cracks around the axial direction of the prefabricated holes. Coal samples with smaller hole have shorter cracks, indicating that the diameter of the holes significantly changes the axial loading limit. The research results have a certain reference significance for understanding the crack propagation of coal under static loads and evaluating the deformation characteristic and spatiotemporal stability of gas drainage in soft coal seams.

The deformation and failure features of rock formation in deep coal mines are basic mechanical problems in the complex geology environment and complicated excavation process. Under the effect of cyclic loading and unloading, the bearing capacity weakens and damage degree exacerbates significantly, which seriously threatens the safety and stability of the working face. To study the damage characteristics of sandstone, especially the precursor characteristics of acoustic emission (AE), this paper conduct the AE response experiments on sandstone under cyclic loading and unloading. The results show that with the increasing number of cycles, the loading modulus, unloading modulus, total strain energy, elastic energy, and dissipation energy of sandstone in the cycle stage all increase continuously. In the initial loading stage, the sandstone has fewer cycles and lower stress levels, fewer AE ringing counts and energy, and less rock damage. With the increasing cyclic times and loading stress, the damage degree of sandstone increases rapidly in a very short time. The damage variable represented by ringing count is more sensitive than by energy. Just before rock failure, the ringing count and the energy value increase significantly, and the damage curve rises sharply. In addition, AE waveform signals have obvious aggregation characteristics and four main bands. Just before sandstone failure, the main frequency band becomes wider, the low frequency bands f₁ and f₂ become connected, and the main signal frequency appears abnormally low and high. The waveform signals before sandstone instability and failure show a phenomenon where the low-frequency amplitude is generally at a high level, the high-frequency signal decreases, the amplitude becomes low, and the multipeak phenomenon weakens. The above characteristics of the AE time domain and waveform analysis can be used as the precursor characteristics of sandstone failure and instability. This study can reveal the process of the sandstone deterioration and AE response under the cyclic loading and unloading condition, and has certain guiding significance for roof and floor control in deep roadway, instability warming monitor of working faces, and guarantees for safety production.

The long-term stability of coal mine roadway engineering is critical to the safe mining of coal resources and the protection of the surface environment. In this paper, the creep test of coal samples in coal roadway was carried out by multi-stage constant load method, and the test results showed that when the stress level was low, the creep curve had a attenuated stage and a steady-state stage, and the steady-state creep rate tended to increase with the increase in the stress level; When the stress level was higher than the yield stress, the creep rate curve appeared to have an acceleration stage after the steady-state stage. The instability failure mode of the coal sample was mainly shear failure with local tension failure. For this, a New Fractional-order Nonlinear Viscoelastic-plastic Rheological Model (NFNVRM) was established by introducing Abel elements and Nonlinear elements, and the constitutive equation of the model was deduced. The new model can fully reflect the stable decay stage and accelerated rheological stages of coal samples, and the parameter identification curve was consistent with the experimental results, which verifies the correctness and reasonableness of the NFNVRM. Meanwhile, based on the FLAC3D secondary development interface, the constitutive equations of the NFNVRM were written into the software to obtain new Dynamic Link Library (DLL) files. The simulation results were consistent with the experimental results when the DLL file was called. Finally, the NFNVRM.dll was applied to predict the surrounding rock deformation of an S mine. The study’s findings offer suggestions for environmental protection.