In order to understand the deformation and failure characteristics of coal-rock under different confining pressures and reveal the mechanism of confining pressure effect, the stress-strain characteristics, strength characteristics and acoustic emission (AE) characteristics of coal-rock under different confining pressures (i.e. 0, 8, 16 and 25MPa)were studied by MTS 815 rock mechanics testing system four and RFPA 2D(realistic failure process analysis system) numerical simulation software. The results show that the confining pressure has a significant influence on the deformation and failure characteristics of coal-rock. With the increase of the confining pressure, the maximum compressive strength of coal-rock increases linearly, and the failure form of coal-rock gradually changes from brittle failure to ductile failure. The main failure modes are compression shear splitting failure under uniaxial compression and shear failure under triaxial compression. The strength characteristic parameters of coal-rock increase with the confining pressure, and the elastic modulus increases nonlinearly with the confining pressure. The greater the confining pressure, the higher the plastic strain, the larger the residual strain. AE of coal-rock under uniaxial compression is superactive; however it remains stable with the increase of confining pressure, so does the strain energy release. RFPA can reproduce the progressive failure process of coal-rock from crack initiation to propagation to complete failure under different confining pressures. The simulation results are consistent with that of the laboratory test, which verifies the reliability of the numerical simulation.