Acknowledgements

The work presented in this book was carried out during the author's doctoral study in the Nottingham Centre for Geomechanics from January 2006 to December 2009.The financial support provided by the Department of Civil Engineering and the University of Nottingham is gratefully acknowledged.

I would first and foremost like to thank my supervisor,Prof.Hai-Sui Yu,for his supervision,guidance and financial support throughout this research.Prof.Yu is also the person who introduced this topic to me,and gave me the opportunity to carry out this study.

Special and sincere thanks are due to my second supervisor,Dr.Dariusz Wanatowski,for providing me meticulous guidance and assistance in the experimental work and proof reading.Without his circumspection and patience,it would not be possible to complete this work.

I would like to thank all the technicians in the Department of Civil Engineering for their help and advice with the experimentation,in particular Ian Richardson.I would like to thank Amanullah Marri for his help in the triaxial test.Thanks were extended to Caroline Dolby for her kindly help in the four years.

Last,I gratefully ackonwledge the finacial support to publish the book from the National Basic Research Program of China(973 Program)(No.2011CB013503),the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.51308234),the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China(No.2013J05079),and the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering,China University of Mining and Technology,China(No.SKLGDUEK1304).

Huaqiao University,P.R.China

Yanyan Cai

December,2014