Experimental Investigation of the Influence of Drilling Arrangements on the Mechanical Behavior of Rock Models

Destress drilling method is one of the commonly used methods for mitigating rock bursts. To better understand the influence of drilling arrangements on the destress effect is beneficial for rock burst mitigation. This study experimentally investigated the influence of drilling arrangements (i.e. drilling diameter, number of drilling holes and number of drilling rows) on the mechanical properties of rock models through uniaxial compression tests. The acoustic emission (AE) technique was applied to record and analyze the information of failure processes. Test results show that both the stress–strain curves and the AE characteristics of rock models are controlled by drilling arrangements. Moreover, the uniaxial compressive strength and elastic modulus decrease as increasing the drilling diameter, number of drilling holes or number of drilling rows. The splitting failure accompanied with local shear failure is the main failure mode for specimens with different drilling arrangements, but the drilling arrangements influence the crack propagation and the damage degree. The test results can provide basic experimental data for further study on the destress drilling method.