A series of multistage creep tests under different confining pressures with acoustic emission monitoring have been performed to investigate the deformation characteristic and failure process of cracked granite during creep. The critical axial strain of cracked sample showed an increasing tendency with the increase of confining pressure. In contrast, critical lateral strain experienced a process of descending first at low confinement and then remaining nearly constant at high confinement.

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... d with loading-cracked specimen, smaller critical axial strain, greater critical lateral strain, and higher lateral creep strain rate were found for unloading-cracked specimen. Based on the spatial and temporal distribution of acoustic emission events, the cracking process during creep was analysed. The AE events with high energy are mainly concentrated at the final fracture area of the specimen. The higher the confining pressure, the more the AE events with low energy. Compared with the loading-cracked specimen, the percentage of AE events with high energy is relatively small for the unloading-cracked specimen.