Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 143 (2024) 105503

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

incorporating Trenchless Technology Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tust

Velocity tomography of cross-sectional damage evolution along rock

longitudinal direction under uniaxial loading
Qiangqiang Zheng a, b, c, Jiawei Qian b, c, d, Haijiang Zhang b, c, *, Yukuan Chen e, b,
Shihuai Zhang b, c
a
State Key Laboratory of Mining Response and Disaster Prevention and Control in Deep Coal Mines, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan Anhui
232001, China
b
Laboratory of Seismology and Physics of Earth’s Interior, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei Anhui 230026,
China
c
Mengcheng National Geophysical Observatory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei Anhui 230026, China
d
College of Oceanography, Hohai University, Nanjing Jiangsu 210024, China
e
Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Rock pillars in rock engineering are affected by the stress concentration, which is uneven and can lead to po­
Acoustic emission tential instability after loading disturbance. In this paper, considering the heterogeneity of the rock, time-
Rock damage dependent velocity tomography based on the Kalman filter system is adopted to invert the velocity evolution
Heterogeneity
of the rock monitored via acoustic emission (AE) under diverse stresses. Furthermore, the tomography uncer­
End effect
P-wave velocity tomography
tainty is investigated to validate the experimental accuracy of the loaded rock. The experimental results show
that Kalman filter-based tomography can characterize the damages of the loaded rock, which is influenced by the
distance from the sample’s end and heterogeneity of the rock. The rock damage and its growth rate increase
when the loading increases or the cross section approaches the mid-waistline. The model uncertainty analysis
demonstrates that the velocity tomography based on the Kalman filter has a high precision. Our study shows that
for evaluating the stability of bearing rock pillars, we can simplify the rock pillar as a uniaxial loading rock and
need to consider the rock’s heterogeneity for understanding the damage distribution and evolution of the loaded
rock.

1. Introduction
The rock’s bearing capacity is critical to the stability of the overlying
structure in rock engineering sites such as tunnels (Kovačević et al.,
2021), underground mines (Su et al., 2023), civil air-defense construc­
tion (Zhang et al., 2023), and deep laboratories (Deng et al., 2022). The
rock pillars in rock engineering, including the rock wall surrounding a
tunnel (Li et al., 2019; Si et al., 2023), and the coal and rock pillars in
coal mine roadways (Zhang et al., 2020; Walton et al., 2021; Cao et al.,
2022) are affected by the stress concentration (Wasantha et al., 2014;
Duan et al., 2019), and the stress distribution is uneven (Xu et al., 2021a;
He et al., 2021; Lin et al., 2020), resulting in potential stability after
loading disturbance (Zheng et al., 2021a; Zheng et al., 2022). However,
the rock pillar, especially one with a small distance (Xu et al., 2021b), is
usually disturbed by excavation and contains many defects such as
fissures and joints (Aghaei et al., 2023; Podymova et al., 2022), and it is
not satisfied by the hypothesis of rock homogeneity (Bewick et al., 2019;
Wang et al., 2023). The progressive collapse of the rock pillar is usually
derived from the localized damage due to its stress concentration, which
is unfavorable for early warning and risk mitigation (Wu et al., 2017;
Renani et al., 2018). Therefore, considering the rock’s heterogeneity,
the stress is likely distributed unevenly along the longitudinal direction
of the rock pillar (Shirole et al., 2020; Lv et al., 2022), which is not
conducive to stability in rock engineering. Timely capturing the damage
distribution in the rock pillar and then taking timely risk mitigation
measures are important for rock engineering.
The rock pillar is subjected to a vertical load without loading on both
free faces and can be simplified as a uniaxial loading model (Fig. 1)
(Fakhimi et al., 2016). Accompanied by the spatiotemporal evolution of
the rock damage during the entire uniaxial loading process (Zheng et al.,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhang11@ustc.edu.cn (H. Zhang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2023.105503
Received 6 July 2023; Received in revised form 24 October 2023; Accepted 11 November 2023
Available online 20 November 2023
0886-7798/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503
uniaxial load
flaws
rock pillar
Fig. 1. Mechanical model simplified to a flawed rock pillar under an over­
burden load.
2021b), defects such as micro-holes and micro-cracks in the rock are
fractured by loading (Luo et al., 2019; Niu et al., 2023). The mechanical
properties (Tao et al., 2018), damage evolution (D’Angiò et al., 2021;
Zhang et al., 2019a), and fracture mechanism (Birck et al., 2016) of rock
under uniaxial loading have been investigated in previous studies,
which have enhanced the rock mechanics theory and have further suc­
cessfully guided rock engineering projects (Zhang et al., 2021a; Li et al.,
2022a). Damage mechanics mainly encompasses two branches: contin­
uous damage mechanics (Ghamgosar et al., 2021), which focuses on the
degree to which the macroscopic properties of structures or materials
are affected by damage, and microscopic damage mechanics (Wang
et al., 2021a), which concerns the analysis of micro-holes and micro-
cracks, and the deformation and evolution process of these primitive
combinations. Since Taylor built a damage model based on each inde­
pendent crack in a medium in the 1950s (Yu et al., 1997), many studies
have constructed different microscopic damage models such as the
generalized self-consistent method (Budiansky et al., 1976), the Mor­
i—Tanaka method (Benveniste et al., 1986), the Gurson model (Gurson
et al., 1977), and others (Fakhimi et al., 2007; Rasmussen et al., 2018).
Nevertheless, because the sophisticated microscopic structure of the
rock is vulnerable to the diagenetic environment (Zhang et al., 2018a),
tectonic movement (Chassé et al., 2016), mining (He et al., 2018), oc­
currences (Hao et al., 2021), and others (Rusin et al., 2017), it is difficult
to accurately investigate the damage evolution of rocks by only
considering the microscopic mechanics. In addition, to facilitate the
calculations, many models simplify the rock as homogeneous, and thus
they do not fully satisfy the actual situations of rock engineering (Phi
et al., 2021; Li et al., 2021). The macroscopic damage mechanics can be
studied based on non-destructive testing to detect the loaded rock and
build the constitutive model, such as ultrasonic (Pallarés et al., 2021),
infrared induction (Fan et al., 2022), digital image correlation (DIC)
(Huang et al., 2020), and acoustic emission (Wang et al., 2021b), which
has been widely employed owning to its adaption to sophisticated
geological conditions. Nonetheless, none of these methods can directly
visualize the damage inside a loaded rock until the application of
computed tomography (CT) (Gao et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2020), but it is
limited by the high cost and inability to adapt to engineering sites.
Although the numerical simulation method can address the above
drawbacks economically and safely (Yang et al., 2015; Mo et al., 2020),
unfortunately, it is unable to adapt to the complex geological conditions
that constantly vary with the advancement of rock engineering (Li et al.,
2022b), and cannot monitor the rock stability in real-time (Eremin et al.,
2020). Some studies have investigated the damage process of rock under
2
uniaxial loading (e.g., Taheri et al., 2020), but most of these studies
focused on a vertical cross section (Renani et al., 2018; Saksala et al.,
2015), and cross sections along the rock’s longitudinal direction have
rarely studied. It has been shown that studying the damage degree of
loaded rock cross sections is very useful for intuitively capturing the full-
section bearing stress distribution of a rock pillar, which facilitates
investigation of the stability of the rock pillar (Ji et al., 2021). Therefore,
there is an urgent need to develop a method that not only considers the
rock’s heterogeneity but is also suitable for the complex geological
conditions in rock engineering to study the damage process of loaded
rock cross sections.
According to rock mechanics theory, there is a positive association
between the longitudinal wave (P-wave) velocity and the degree of
damages in the loaded rock (Zhang et al., 2021b; Zhu et al., 2020).
Therefore, to investigate its damage evolution, it is of great significance
to study the P-wave velocity variations of a loaded rock over time.
Previous studies have demonstrated that seismic velocity variations are
consistent with the trend of the fracture expansion (Zhang et al., 2019b;
Guo et al., 2021; Deng et al., 2017). Traditionally, time-dependent
seismic tomography methods separately invert the velocity model for
each time period and then subtract the consecutive velocity models to
obtain the temporal velocity variations (Liu et al., 2021). However, the
reliability of the temporal velocity variations depends on the similarity
in the distribution of the ray paths in each period, and artifacts inevi­
tably exist in temporal velocity models obtained in such a manner (Gao
et al., 2020). Qian et al., (Qian et al., 2018) have developed a true time-
dependent seismic tomography method based on double-difference
seismic tomography (Zhang and Thurber, 2003; Zhang et al., 2004) by
using differential arrival times from event pairs that belong to different
time periods to directly invert the temporal velocity changes between
time periods. The only drawback of the method of Qian et al. (2018) is
that it requires sufficient ray coverage for both time periods to deter­
mine reliable temporal velocity changes. As a result, the time resolution
of the obtained temporal velocity variations is relatively low.
In this study, we adopted a real-time seismic location and tomogra­
phy algorithm based on the Kalman filter to determine temporal varia­
tions in rock fracture positions, P-wave velocity model, and its
uncertainty (Chen et al., 2020). This method can image a specific area by
constructing a model covariance matrix that only contains information
corresponding to the velocity anomaly zone, and thus it can effectively
avoid potential artifacts (Chen et al., 2020). It only needs the estimated
values at the previous moment and observed values in the existing state
to calculate the estimated values of the current state (Soyoz et al., 2008).
AE was employed to monitor the rock sample under uniaxial loading
to simulate the bearing state of rock pillars in rock engineering. Then,
according to the monitored AE parameters of the loaded rock, the
seismic tomography method based on the Kalman filter was adopted to
invert the evolution of the velocity structure along cross sections at
different heights in the longitudinal direction under diverse stresses.
Furthermore, the seismic tomography results were evaluated using the
model uncertainties to verify the accuracy of the damage evolution.
Finally, combined with the mechanical mechanism of the uniaxial
loading of the rock, the end effect of the loaded rock was studied.
Considering the heterogeneity of rock, it is of great significance to
investigate the damage distribution and evolution in rock under uniaxial
loading in order to study the stability of rock bearing pillars in rock
engineering.
2. Methodology
2.1. Sample preparation
The sandstone samples used in this study were cored from a rock
pillar in a coal mine in Huainan, China, by an in-situ sampling method.
After being cut and polished, the sandstone samples were processed into
cylinders (Φ50 mm × h100 mm) following the method recommended by
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503

the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM). Most notably, to Considering this condition of the distribution of m, the data likeli­
avoid stress concentration on the sandstone during the loading process hood can be calculated, which denotes the data fitting with data
and its effect on the accuracy of the test results, the flatness tolerance of observation d.
both ends was maintained at less than 0.02 mm, and the vertical error ( )
1
between the axis and the end faces was less than 0.001 rad. Moreover, to p(d|m)∝exp − (d − Gm)T R− 1 (d − Gm) , (2)
2
avoid the effect by the anisotropy of rock, the rock samples come from
the same rock formation at the same spot. The angle between the coring
where G is the observation or the sensitivity matrix for the simulation
and the rock direction during indoor coring is consistent with the angle
from the current model m, and R is the covariance matrix of d.
between the load applied to the rock pillar and the rock formation in the
Considering the prior information (Eq. (1)) and the observed data d,
actual engineering site. A total of 5 sandstone samples were used in this
the posterior probability distribution of the model can be calculated
experiment with an average density of 2.61 g/cm3 and P-wave velocity
using the Bayesian method:
of 2.96 km/s. The average uniaxial compressive strength measured
( )
through the uniaxial loading test was 62.68 MPa. The basic physical and 1 ̂ − 1(m
̂
p( m)∝exp − (m μ )T Q
̂ − ̂ μ)
̂ − ̂ (3)
mechanical properties of these sandstone samples are shown in Table 1. 2

The posterior mean ̂

μ and covariance matrix Q
̂ can be expressed as
2.2. Experimental facilities and processes follows:

To study the damage evolution of the loaded rock, the sandstone
sample was subjected to uniaxial loading using an MTS-816 hydraulic
servo-control experimental system. The loading rate of the MTS-816
system was 500 N/s. The loaded sandstone was simultaneously moni­
tored using an AE apparatus with a 40-dB amplifier. Each channel’s
threshold was 100 mV, and the sampling frequency was 3 MHz (Zheng
et al., 2019). Vaseline was applied evenly on the ceramic surface of the
sensors, and they were then adhered to the pre-designed locations to
improve the quality of the AE monitoring (Liu et al., 2020a). To evaluate
the sensors’ responses to the AE source in the sandstone sample, a pencil,
as a simulated sound source, was employed to assess the accuracy of the
location and the wave velocity before the experiment was conducted
(Zheng et al., 2021b). Eight sensors (locations shown in Fig. 2) were
adopted to monitor the loaded sandstone. After the AE signals of the
sandstone under uniaxial loading were detected, we further conducted
time-dependent velocity tomography based on the Kalman filter to
characterize the spatiotemporal characteristics of the rock damages. The
experimental apparatuses and processes are shown in Fig. 2.
3. Velocity tomography based on the Kalman filter
The Kalman filter method, first proposed by Rudolf E. Kalman
(Kalman, 1960), is an optimal recursive filter that estimates the best
least squares model from measurements that contain noise, which has
been widely employed in many research fields. For example, the Kalman
filter has been applied in geophysics such as first break picking (Bergsma
et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2020), hypocenter location (Baziw and Weir-
Jones, 2002), and seismic tomography (Qian et al., 2018). These
studies have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of the Kal­
man filter, as well as its advantages of real-time data processing and
simultaneously providing the uncertainty of the results. The Kalman
filter method based on Bayesian theory is expressed as follows:
( )
1 According to rock mechanics theory, there is a positive correlation
p(m)∝exp − (m − μ)T Q− 1 (m − μ) , (1)
2 between the variation in the loaded rock P-wave velocity and the degree
where m denotes an m-dimensional model that follows the Gaussian
probability distribution, and μ is the mean, and Q is the covariance
matrix.
μ = μ + K(d − Gμ),
̂ (4)
̂ = (I − KG)Q,
Q (5)
where K is the Kalman gain.
( )− 1
K = QGT GQGT + R . (6)
The real-time processing of the data stream can be realized by setting
the dimension of the data vector d as 1. In addition, the model and data
are both represented by their corresponding perturbation quantities and
are updated in the form of a series of recursive iterations in Eqs. (7) and
(8).
( )
Qi− 1 gTi
δμi = δμi− 1 + T 2
(δdi − gi δμi− 1 ), (7)
gi Qi− 1 gi + σ i
( )
Qi− 1 gTi gi Qi− 1
Qi = Qi− 1 − , (8)
gi Qi− 1 gTi + σ 2i
where δdi is the ith element in data vector δd, gi is the ith row vector of
matrix G and σ2i is the data variance.
The seismic wave slowness is generally employed to represent the
model m in order to linearize the tomographic inversion problem.
However, this makes it difficult to estimate the model’s covariance
matrix directly from the initial velocity model. In this study, the sam­
pling method was utilized to set the initial model covariance matrix. For
each element in the initial velocity model, it should follow a Gaussian
distribution with the mean value as the initial value. The final slowness
model variances were obtained from the diagonal values of the model
covariance matrix. The Gaussian distribution for each element in the
initial velocity model is set according to Zhang et al. (2018b), with the
mean value as the initial value. For noise in the AE data, it also follows
the Gaussian noise distribution (Bodin et al., 2012).
of damages (Zhu et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2021c). Consequently, the
variations in the rock velocity, inverted using the tomography method
based on the Kalman filter, can be employed to describe the damage

Table 1
Basic physical and mechanical properties of the sandstone.
Number Diameter (mm) Length (mm) Density (g/cm3) Young’s modulus (GPa) Poisson’s ratio Uniaxial compressive strength (MPa) P-wave (km/s)

S-1 49.94 100.08 2.60 26.46 0.24 59.28 2.97

S-2 49.92 99.96 2.63 27.40 0.26 58.35 3.08
S-3 49.96 100.72 2.59 24.42 0.23 66.36 2.79
S-4 49.95 100.08 2.60 25.53 0.22 63.15 2.85
S-5 49.96 100.40 2.61 28.39 0.24 66.28 3.11
Average value 49.95 100.25 2.61 19.44 0.24 62.68 2.96

3
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503

Fig. 2. Experimental apparatuses and procedure of the velocity tomography analysis of the rock sample under uniaxial loading based on the Kalman filter.

evolution of the loaded rock.
4. Experimental results and analysis
The AE parameters, including the cumulative counts and AE energy,
can elaborate the mechanical mechanism of the sandstone under uni­
axial loading (Zheng et al., 2021b). According to the rock mechanics
mechanism and AE signal characteristics, the AE signals were divided
into three stages (Fig. 3) to make it easier to study the development of
the damage in the sandstone under uniaxial loading. This division
method not only considers the AE signal characteristics but also follows
three stages of the rock’s stress–strain curve (Table 2). To have an ac­
curate initial velocity model to start for the time-dependent tomogra­
phy, we select the early time period of the loading stage as stage 0 to
invert for the initial velocity model, where only a few AE events are
emitted in the transient initial loading stage. In this way, we not only
avoid treating rock sample as a homogeneous body with a constant P-
wave velocity but at the same time avoid having a complex initial ve­
locity model due to too many AE events. Moreover, the threshold of AE
in this article is set to 100 mV, which is higher than 0.1 mV (40 dB) in
other studies (Niu et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2021a), which is why the
cumulative number of AE events is smaller than in other studies. This
also helps avoid misidentifying one AE event as multiple AE events due
to the waveform amplitude of the same AE event exceeding the preset
threshold multiple times (Zhu et al., 2019). Although the number of AE
events is relatively small, it does not affect the accuracy of tomography
of loaded rock’s damage because these AE eevnts are well distributed.
Throughout the entire loading process, accompanied by the
increased damage to the sandstone, the cumulative counts increased.
The rock underwent four evolution stages under uniaxial loading
(Goodman, 1980): compression and closure of the original interstices
(stage I), elastic deformation (stage II), and plastic deformation and
failure (stage III). In stage I, the original interstices in the sandstone were
compressed and closed under the enforced load. The AE events were
intensively emitted in a short period, while the AE energy was small
(Wei et al., 2020). After this, the loaded rock jumped into the elastic
deformation stage (stage II), and the sandstone’s mineral particles
significantly contributed to the resistance to deformation (Yang et al.,

Fig. 3. Temporal evolution of the AE parameters of the sandstone under uniaxial loading.

4
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503

Table 2
Direct comparison of the three stages according to AE features with stress–strain curve.
I II III

Stress–strain curve Compression and closure of the original Elastic deformation stage Plastic deformation and failure stage
interstices
AE characteristics Few AE events and low energy AE events are relatively dispersed with slightly higher Intensely AE events with big energy and
Color energy numbers

2020). Therefore, throughout this prolonged period, there were fewer
AE events and less energy was released. In the plastic deformation stage
(stage III), the cracks exponentially increased and extended into the rock
matrix, instantaneously emitting AE signals with the maximum energy
(Huang et al., 2015).
The above mechanical characteristics and AE features of the loaded
rock were described from a macroscopic point of view. However, from
this perspective, the spatial and temporal relationships between the
damage to the loaded rock could not be captured intuitively and did not
consider the rock heterogeneity (Jing et al., 2021). In comparison, the
tomography based on the Kalman filter considered the rock’s hetero­
geneity and was able to characterize the damage evolution of the loaded
rock in the different stages and along distinct cross sections. Referring to
the coordinate system of the cylindrical sandstone shown in Fig. 2 and
the stage division shown in Fig. 3, the velocity structure of the sandstone
along different cross sections in the different loading stages was
sequentially inverted. Notably, stage 0 was the beginning of the loading,
which can be regarded as the original rock state and thus could be
employed as a control group to determine the damage evolution during
stages I, II, and III. For time-dependent tomography, loaded rocks are
meshed into 3D grids, as shown in Fig. 4. The X-axis grid nodes are
located at − 25, − 20, − 15, − 10, − 5, 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 mm,
respectively. The grid nodes along the Y-axis are located at − 25, − 20,
− 15, − 10, − 5, 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 mm, respectively. Grid nodes in
the vertical direction are located at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 mm,
respectively. Six cross sections at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 mm from the
bottom along the axial direction were selected to visualize the successive
velocity variations in the rock (Fig. 5).
The damage to the loaded sandstone in Fig. 5, as characterized by
numerous high-energy AE events and the low-velocity anomalies,
increased as the loading grew and also increased from both ends to the
middle of the section. In stage I in Fig. 5, the primary interstices are
compacted and closed during a short initial loading period and a few
cavities are simultaneously squeezed, which is accompanied by emitting
AE events. In this case, the AE energy is lower than that caused by rock
fracturing (Niu et al., 2023). In addition, a high detection threshold
setting results in relatively fewer AE events being monitored. Therefore,
the number of AE events in this short period is relatively small, and the
energy is the smallest in the entire loading stage. Moreover, the P-wave
velocity in stage I is increased due to the primary interstices being
compacted and closed in some areas (Zhu et al., 2020; Sengun et al.,
2011) while velocity decreasing in other zones can be attributed to the
fractures induced by compressing some cavities (Shen et al., 2022). In
the elastic deformation stage of the loaded rock (stage II in Fig. 5), the
deformation mainly originates from the deformation of solid mineral
particles under the application of load and the generation of a few and
small cracks on the transition surface between solid mineral particles
and the cementitious matrix (Mahanta et al., 2021). AE energy emitted
by the cracking of transition surface cracks is higher than the
compression closure of original interstices, and AE events are more
widely distributed, which has been confirmed by many scholars (Zhou
et al., 2021; Abbas et al., 2023). Therefore, the AE energy for individual
event in stage II is relatively large, while the the number of AE events is
small and they are more dispersed. Moreover, solid mineral particles are
compressed and deformed under load without cracking while the vol­
ume decreases, thus their density increases based on the law of con­
servation of mass (Zhao et al., 2014). This is why the P-wave velocity
increased in a few regions in stage II in Fig. 5. After the elastic defor­
mation stage, the cracks along the transition surfaces in the rock begin to
develop rapidly due to the tip effect (Schluter et al., 2014). It also
exponentially promoted the generation and expansion of secondary
cracks in the cemented matrix with scales larger than those in the pre­
ceding two stages (Yang et al., 2022). This also leads to the triggering of
extensive AE events in a short period, and the AE energy reaches its
maximum in the whole loading process. In the plastic deformation and
failure stage, cracks expanded in the loaded rock lead to a significant
decrease in the P-wave velocity.
In summary, during the uniaxial loading process, as the load
increased, the P-wave velocity of the rock not only decreased in some
areas but also increased in other regions, which was strongly related to
the mechanical mechanism of the sandstone. Furthermore, the area in
which the P-wave velocity decreased was greater than the area in which
it increased, and the range and degree of the velocity reduction
increased with distance to the waistline decreasing. The distribution of

Fig. 4. Gridding schematic diagrams of loaded rock tomography in different views. (a) 3-D view, (b) X-Y plane, and (c) X-Z plane.

5
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503
Fig. 5. Velocity structure of the sandstone along different cross sections in the different loading stages.
the P-wave velocity of the loaded sandstone along the different cross
sections is shown in Fig. 5. In addition, the fractured state of the rock
after uniaxial loading is shown in Fig. 6, which can be helpful for
explaining the end effect.
Fig. 5 sheds light on the evident end effects on the evolution of the P-
wave velocity. It is consistent with the failure state, in which the cracks
in the middle are more significantly developed than those at both ends,
as evidenced in the sandstone after uniaxial loading. As a result, closer to
both ends P-wave velocity more likely increases, while near the speci­
men’s middle waistline they more sharply decreased. Having been
subjected to the end effects of uniaxial loading, the region where the P-
wave velocity increased was the largest at both ends of the sandstone,
and the increase in amplitude was also the largest. In the cross section,
from both ends to the middle waistline, the P-wave velocity of the
loaded sandstone gradually decreased, and the decreasing amplitude
increased. The friction force between the sample and the pressure-
bearing of the MTS-816 bonded the two ends of the sandstone when
the uniaxial load was applied, and it could not be freely extended
laterally (Goodman, 1980). Therefore, under the comprehensive effects
of the axial load and the friction force, the end of the rock sample was
compacted, and accordingly, the P-wave velocity increased. These re­
sults are supported by velocity patterns in Fig. 6, where the integrity of
both ends of the sandstone is higher than that of the middle, and the
fracture degree and cracks in the middle are significantly higher than
Fig. 6. The fractured state of the rock after uniaxial loading.
6
those at both ends. In addition, the heterogeneity of the rock controlled
the crisscross distribution of the areas in which the P-wave velocity
increased and decreased within the sandstone under uniaxial loading.
The fracture pattern of sandstone after uniaxial loading shown in
Fig. 6 verifies the reliability of velocity tomography in Fig. 5. Although
full images of internal fractures and fissures cannot be inspected, the end
effect of rock fracture can still be observed from the outer profile.
Moreover, the damage near the lower half (at 60 mm) was more
intensive than in the upper half (at 40 mm), which is consistent with the
tomography results. This asymmetry of the fracture distribution is due to
the non-homogeneous nature of the rock.
We also cut along the diameter direction of the circles at both ends of
the sample, and analyzed the variations in the P-wave velocity of the
section to verify the end effect and the evolution of the damages to the
sandstone under diverse loading stages (Fig. 7).
The end effect of the evolution of the P-wave velocity in the sand­
stone under uniaxial loading was verified by the velocity structure of the
loaded sandstone in cross sections obtained via tomography in the
diverse loading stages. The compaction and closure in the original in­
terstices stage (I), elastic stage (II), and plastic deformation and failure
stage (III) were designated to study the evolution of the P-wave velocity
in the sandstone. The regions where the P-wave velocity increased were
the largest at both ends and decreased in size toward the mid-waistline,
which is consistent with the experimental results presented in Fig. 3.
Furthermore, as the load increased, the P-wave velocity decreased in
general, but it continued to increase in some particular regions (Fig. 5).
However, the P-wave velocity initially increased in stage I and subse­
quently decreased as the loading increased.
5. Model uncertainty analysis
The model uncertainty was analyzed to validate the velocity varia­
tions within the rock under uniaxial loading (Fig. 8). The uncertainty of
wave velocity should be related to the likely largest disturbance
amplitude of the velocity model. From the inversion results, the
maximum range of P-wave velocity change is not more than 1 km/s.
Therefore, at the beginning of the inversion, the standard deviation of
the velocities at each grid point was set to be 1 km/s, which are pre­
sumed to have a Gaussian distribution. The model uncertainty, calcu­
lated from the variance of the velocities, was continuously updated as
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503

Fig. 7. Velocity variations in the sandstone in cross sections along the diameter direction in the different loading stages.

Fig. 8. Model uncertainties of P-wave velocity in the rock along different cross sections in the different stages under uniaxial loading.

the load was increased.
Overall, the model uncertainties were small except at both ends,
suggesting that the imaging results of the rock velocity structures under
uniaxial loading have a high accuracy. At both ends of the rock spec­
imen, during the entire process from the beginning to the end of loading,
very few AE signals were emitted. Consequently, compared with the
cross sections at the rock’s waistline, the ray coverage was poor at both
ends, and thus, the model uncertainties were relatively large. In com­
parison, the area near the rock waistline emitted more AE events, and
thus, more AE rays passed through the cross section, leading to lower
model uncertainties. Therefore, along the cross section, the model ac­
curacy increases toward the middle of the rock sample.
6. Discussion
Previous studies have demonstrated the damage evolution of rocks in
diverse loading stages through numerical simulation (Saksala et al.,
2015), CT imaging (Wang et al., 2020), and AE analysis (Wei et al.,
2020). Wei and Zhu (Wei et al., 2020), for instance, reported that the
predominant features of rock collapse are characterized by crossing from
microstructural heterogeneity into stress-induced rock damage based on
the joint analysis of AE monitoring and numerical simulation results. In
addition, Wang et al. (2020) employed CT imaging and the LS-DYNA
simulation software to investigate the damage to a rock after blasting
and then proposed a method to evaluate the failure mechanism by
reconstructing the spatial distribution of the internal fissures in the rock.
Nevertheless, these studies either neglected the rock’s heterogeneity or
did not consider the end effect of the loaded rock. In this study,
considering the heterogeneity of the rock, the damage evolution of the
sandstone in the diverse loading stages was monitored by AE and
determined via the tomography method based on the Kalman filter, and
the end effect of the rock damage was also investigated.
We found that the damage to the sandstone under uniaxial loading
increased as the load increased, and the regular pattern of the damage

7
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503
evolution was closely related to the mechanical characteristics of the
rock. Furthermore, the damage progression of the loaded sandstone
sample demonstrated an apparent end effect. This is consistent with the
bearing of rock pillars in rock engineering and mining engineering
(Fig. 9) (Perras, 2014; Lunder et al., 1997; Liu et al., 2020b). These
findings extend the damage theory of rocks and confirm that the damage
degree of rocks under uniaxial loading is closely related to the distance
from the end of the sample. In addition, the damage to the loaded
sandstone noted in our investigation considered the rock’s heterogene­
ity, and the experimental data were obtained by monitoring the rock
under uniaxial loading in real-time. Therefore, the results of this study
reveal the spatial and temporal distribution of the rock damage along
the different cross sections in the different loading stages.
Most notably, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first investi­
gation to study the variation in the damage degree with respect to the
distance to the end face of the sandstone under uniaxial loading using
tomography based on the Kalman filter. The results of this study provide
compelling evidence for damage judgment and risk mitigation in rock
engineering and suggest that the damage to the loaded rock is vulner­
able to the end effect.
The progression of the damage to the sandstone sample under uni­
axial loading was investigated and the rock heterogeneity was taken into
account. It was found that in some regions, the P-wave velocity alter­
nately increased and decreased (Figs. 3 and 5). The upper and bottom
ends of rock pillars connect with a larger area of the top and bottom
plates in rock engineering. The radial deformation at both ends of the
rock pillar under static load disturbance is constrained, resulting in
uneven stress distribution inside the rock pillar, as shown in Fig. 9 (Liu
et al., 2020b). It is the underlying reason for the end effect of rock pillars
Fig. 9. End effect of rock pillar damage.
8
under static load disturbance. However, the end effect is also generated
due to the radial deformation of the upper and bottom ends of the rock
constrained by the friction force of the loading device in laboratory
experiments (Perras, 2014). Although there are some differences be­
tween laboratory experiments and engineering sites in end effects, the
nature of cause is the same phenomenon caused by radial constraint
deformation at the upper and bottom ends of the rock (Renani et al.,
2018). Even though they are very similar, there are still some differences
between the two. Moreover, if there is a large cavity or defect inside the
rock mass, the damage of the loaded rock mass may be affected by them
and may be closer to them rather than the waistline. The loaded rock
mass may not exhibit end effects due to the influence of defects. In
addition, the differences in lithology may also affect the end effect of the
loaded rock. However, shale and slate may not have particularly influ­
ential end effects owning to diagenesis. Future work should consider the
lateral friction force or lithology to evaluate the damage evolution of the
rock under uniaxial loading.
7. Conclusions
In this study, considering the heterogeneity of the rock, a combina­
tion of AE monitoring and tomography analysis based on the Kalman
filter was applied to investigate the damage evolution of a sandstone
sample under uniaxial loading, and its end effect was studied. The main
conclusions of this study are as follows.
(1) Kalman filter-based tomography imaging can visually charac­
terize invert the damage to the loaded rock and can simulta­
neously obtain the velocity model’s error. In addition, the model
Q. Zheng et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology incorporating Trenchless Technology Research 143 (2024) 105503
uncertainty analysis demonstrates that the velocity structure to­
mography based on the Kalman filter has a high precision.
(2) The damage to the loaded rock increased as the load increased,
and the growth rate reached the maximum in the plastic defor­
mation and failure stages. In addition, affected by the primary
pores and fissures and the separated rock blocks in the loaded
rock, the P-wave velocity increased in some areas in the primary
pores’ compaction and closure and plastic deformation and fail­
ure stages, with a larger increase in the latter stage.
(3) The damage evolution of the rock under uniaxial loading
demonstrated the end effect. As the cross section approached the
end of the sample, the region in which the P-wave velocity
increased grew and the growth rate increased. The damage de­
gree of the loaded rock increased along the cross sections with
decreasing distance from the mid-waistline.
(4) In the initial stage and plastic deformation and failure stages,
there were regions in which the P-wave velocity increased or
decreased rather than unified changes, which supports the theory
that rocks are heterogeneous.
(5) The damage evolution of rocks under uniaxial load provides a
reference for the division scope of easily disturbed areas of
bearing rock pillars under static load in rock engineering.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Qiangqiang Zheng: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data cura­
tion, Software, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft,
Visualization. Jiawei Qian: Methodology, Software, Formal analysis,
Visualization. Haijiang Zhang: Conceptualization, Supervision, Re­
sources, Writing – review & editing. Yukuan Chen: Methodology,
Revision. Shihuai Zhang: Advising and Revision, Or corresponding to
the option, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China
(2021YFC3000602), Scientific Research Foundation for High-level Tal­
ents of Anhui University of Science and Technology (Grant No.
2023yjrc112), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
Nos. 41961134991; 42304056; 52074009), and Joint Open Fund of
Mengcheng National Geophysical Observatory (MENGO-202302).
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Further reading
Tan, Y., Xing, H., Jin, Z., Wang, J., Pan, S., Guo, H., Zhang, H., Gao, L., 2022.
Seismogenesis of the 2021 Mw 7.1 earthquake sequence near the northeastern Japan
revealed by double-difference seismic tomography. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 594
(117738) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117738.