Abstract: In order to investigate the effects of freeze-thaw duration times and freeze-thaw duration on the physical and mechanical properties of rocks, two freeze-thaw cycles and five cycle times are conducted on white sandstone as the research object. Uniaxial compression acoustic emission （AE） tests are also conducted on the white sandstone after freeze-thaw cycles, with a focus on studying the effects of freeze-thaw cycle times and freeze-thaw duration on the physical and mechanical properties and AE characteristics of white sandstone. At the same time, the multifractal characteristics of the main frequency of AE during the failure process of white sandstone are analyzed. The results show that: ① with the increase of freeze-thaw cycles and freeze-thaw duration, the mass, longitudinal wave velocity, peak stress, and elastic modulus of white sandstone gradually decrease, while porosity and peak strain gradually increase; ② the impact of freeze-thaw cycles on the pore structure of rocks is mainly manifested by a significant increase in the total area of T₂ spectra and rapid expansion of macropores, and an increase in freeze-thaw time will exacerbate pore expansion and structural damage inside the rock; ③ as the number of freeze-thaw cycles increases, the concavity of the stress-strain curve in the compression stage weakens, the slope of the elastic stage gradually decreases, the nonlinear deformation in the yield stage intensifies, the deformation in the failure stage increases, and the longer freeze-thaw time leads to significant deterioration of the rock sample structure; ④ the variation of AE event rate can be divided into initial active stage, stable growth stage, and sudden peak stage. As the number of freeze-thaw cycles increases, the cumulative AE event rate continues to increase, and with the increase of freeze-thaw duration, the cumulative AE event rate increases more significantly; ⑤ as the number of freeze-thaw cycles and freeze-thaw duration increase, the multifractal parameter of AE Δα decreases and Δf increases. The increase in freeze-thaw cycles reduces the variability of AE signals, and as the freeze-thaw duration increases, the AE signals become more uniform.