Non-extensive statistical mechanics (NESM), which is a generalization of the traditional Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics, constitutes a theoretical and analytical tool for investigating the irreversible damage evolution processes and fracture mechanisms occurring when materials are subjected to mechanical loading. In this study, NESM is used for the analysis of the acoustic emission (AE) events recorded when marble and cement mortar specimens were subjected to mechanical loading until fracture. In total, AE data originating from four distinct loading protocols are presented. The cumulative distribution of inter-event times (time interval between two consecutive AE events) and the inter-event distances (three-dimensional Euclidian distance between the centers of successive AE events) were examined under the above concept and it was found that NESM is suitable to detect criticality under the terms of mechanical status of a material. This was conducted by evaluating the fitting results of the q-exponential function and the corresponding q-indices of Tsallis entropy qδτ and qδr, along with the parameters τδτ and dδr. Results support that qδτ+qδr≈2 for AE data recorded from marble and cement mortar specimens of this work, which is in good agreement with the conjecture previously found in seismological data and AE data recorded from Basalt specimens.
Keywords: Tsallis entropy; acoustic emissions; cement; marble; non-extensive statistical physics; q-exponential distribution.