Experimental Study on Mechanical Behavior and Energy Evolution Characteristics of Gas-Filled Deep Coal under Cyclic Loading

To study the mechanical behavior and energy evolution law of gas-filled deep coal, conventional triaxial compression experiments under different confining pressure and gas pressure conditions and cyclic loading and unloading experiments under different gas pressures were carried out. The failure characteristics and mechanical parameters evolution of two loading modes were analyzed. In addition, the energy density and ratio evolution law under cyclic loading was revealed, and based on these findings, an attempt was made to depict the relation of cumulative dissipated energy density and volumetric strain by fitting the experimental data. The results indicated that failure of coal is expressed as a single shear surface under conventional compression, while under cyclic loading mode, coal behaves with multi-fracture crushing failure. Mechanical parameters showed a trend of decay with increasing gas pressure, and that cyclic loading and unloading increases the bearing capacity of coal by 8–38%. The dissipated energy density and ratio grew significantly when coal entered the yield stage. In the compaction stage, the cumulative dissipated energy density rose with volumetric strain in the form of an exponential function, and it increased with relative volumetric strain as a power function.