During the deformation and fracture process, the acoustic emission (AE) signals can be produced for the of coal, rock and other solid materials, which revealing the damage localization evolution process. The effect of gas adsorption and pressure can change mechanical properties of coal mass and affect its damage development. Based on this, the experimental system for gas-bearing coal loading and AE monitoring was constructed, to analyze AE response characteristics under the joint action of loading stress and gas pressure on coal specimen. Afterwards, the damage localization evolution process of coal mass was studied with the moment tensor inversion method. Results showed that temporal response of AE signals was closely related to the damage degree and loading level of coal specimen, which could reveal its local severe damage and final failure characteristics. The spatial distribution and spread trend of AE fracture events inside coal specimen could be calculated through the moment tensor inversion method. It was basically consistent with the results of crack expansion on the specimen surface. The zones, where fracture events occurred intensively, gathered and spread in a continuous trend, were conductive to forming the macrocrack belt macroscopically. It could be regarded as the hazard zone with dynamic failure occurrence. Moreover, when the coal specimen faced the critical failure, the precursor characteristics of AE response appeared with the shear fracture events dominated markedly. The study results provide a new research idea for revealing the damaging localization evolution process under the coupling effect of stress and gas and lay the application foundation.
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