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I would like to express my most sincere thanks and gratitude to Dr. Martin Reed for introducing me to the field of finite elements and its application in geomechanics, and for the huge amount of freedom I was allowed to conduct this research. His continuous and tireless supervision for this work, and his suggestion for improvement and assessment are most valuable in the preparation of this thesis. I also wish to thank Prof. Edward Twizell for his valuable help and support during my studies at Brunel University, especially during the absence of Dr. Reed from Brunel University. Special thanks to Dr. Mike Warby for his permission to use his graph-plotting algo-rithms incorporated in the programs PREFEL and FELVUE which are the pre- and the post-processor of the main program written according to the theories proposed in this thesis. His continuous technical support and the many fruitful discussions with Dr. Simon Shaw are also much appreciated. I am grateful to Mr. Robert Campbell for his continuous assistance and moral support, and for his occasional light-hearted attitude to enlighten the atmosphere. Many thank