Prediction of the post‐failure behavior of rocks: Combining artificial intelligence and acoustic emission sensing

Abstract Acoustic emission (AE) reading is among the most common methods for monitoring the behavior of brittle materials such as rock and concrete. This study uses discrete element method (DEM) simulations to explore the correlations between the pre‐failure AE readings with the post‐failure behavior and residual strength of rock masses. The deep learning (DL) method based on long short‐term memory (LSTM) algorithms has been applied to generate predictive models based on the data from DEM simulations of biaxial compression. The dataset has been populated by varying interparticle friction while keeping bond cohesion constant. Various configurations of the LSTM algorithm were evaluated considering different scenarios for input features (strain, stress, and AE energy records) and a range of values for the key hyperparameters. The prime AI models show promising accuracy in predicting residual strength decay with strain based on pre‐failure patterns in AE readings. The results indicate that the pre‐failure AE indeed encapsulates information about the developing failure mechanisms and the post‐failure response in rocks, which can be captured through artificial intelligence.