Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 361e366

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Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
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A theoretical derivation of the HoekeBrown failure criterion for rock

materials
Jianping Zuo a, b, *, Huihai Liu c, Hongtao Li a
a
State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing 100083, China
b
Institute of Rock Mechanics and Fractals, School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing 100083, China
c
Aramco Research Center, Houston, TX 77084, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study uses a three-dimensional crack model to theoretically derive the HoekeBrown rock failure
Received 7 March 2015 criterion based on the linear elastic fracture theory. Specically, we argue that a failure characteristic
Received in revised form factor needs to exceed a critical value when macro-failure occurs. This factor is a product of the micro-
18 March 2015
failure orientation angle (characterizing the density and orientation of damaged micro-cracks) and the
Accepted 20 March 2015
Available online 7 April 2015
changing rate of the angle with respect to the major principal stress (characterizing the microscopic
stability of damaged cracks). We further demonstrate that the factor mathematically leads to the
empirical HoekeBrown rock failure criterion. Thus, the proposed factor is able to successfully relate the
Keywords:
Failure criterion
evolution of microscopic damaged crack characteristics to macro-failure. Based on this theoretical
Triaxial compression development, we also propose a quantitative relationship between the brittleeductile transition point
Micro-failure orientation and conning pressure, which is consistent with experimental observations.
Fracture mechanics 2015 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Brittleeductile transition Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction predicts that uniaxial compressive strength sc is about eight times

The strength theory of brittle materials, such as rock and con-
crete, has been a subject of intensive study for many years, because
the failure of brittle material is of great concern in designing and
evaluating the safety and stability of engineering structures and
geological engineering facilities. Consequently, the failure criterion
for brittle material has become one of the most important subjects
in many areas (Yu, 2004; Paterson and Wong, 2005; Jaeger et al.,
2007; Zuo et al., 2008).
Grifth (1921) rst postulated that the fracture of brittle mate-
rials occurs when the energy-release rate during crack growth
exceeds the rate that energy is required. Grifths theory, which
indicates that micro-cracks are a major cause of failure of materials
(Grifth, 1921, 1924), has been extended for a biaxially stressed
body with randomly oriented cracks (Od, 1960). A macro-failure
criterion, generally known as the Grifths criterion, is expressed
in terms of the biaxial principal stresses s1, s2 and the magnitude of
the uniaxial tensile strength T0, i.e. s1  s2 2  8T0 s1 s2 0 effect, which may not always be considered in the existing theories.
for s1 >  3s2 and s2 T0 for s1 <  3s2. While Grifths criterion
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 10 62331358.
E-mail address: zjp@cumtb.edu.cn (J. Zuo).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
1674-7755 2015 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sci-
ences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2015.03.008
the uniaxial tensile strength st, most experimental results show
that values for sc/st are larger than 10, even up to 50.
Grifths criterion was modied by McLintock and Walsh (1962)
to s1  s3 1 m1=2 ms1 s3 4st , where m is the friction
p
coefcient. This criterion leads to sc =st 4= m2 1 m as a
uniaxial compression condition for s3 0 and sc s1. In this case, the
ratio sc/st is still smaller than the ratio commonly measured for rocks.
Murrell (1965) suggested that the biaxial criterion could be
generalized for triaxial stress as a paraboloid: s2  s3 2
s3  s1 2 s1  s2 2  24T0 s1 s2 s3 0. Under the uni-
axial compression conditions for s2 s3 0 and sc s1, it can
predict that sc/st 12. However, there seems to be no a priori
reason for selecting this triaxial criterion except on empirical
grounds. Based on a micro-mechanical analysis of sliding cracks,
Wiebols and Cook (1968) proposed a new criterion. However, their
theory suggests that with respect to polyaxial compression, the
intermediate principal stress has a pronounced and predictable
The classic HoekeBrown failure criterion, empirical in its
formulation and based on numerous experimental data, has been
widely used to predict the failure of rocks (Hoek and Brown, 1980a,
b). While the criterion has been modied or extended for a number
of elds, linkage between this well-known criterion and the micro-
mechanical mechanisms of sliding cracks is still rare in the litera-
ture (Hoek, 1983, 1998; Hoek and Brown, 1997), providing such a
linkage would have signicant implications for improving our un-
derstanding of rock damage/failure processes.
362 J. Zuo et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 361e366
The major objective of this study is to make an effort to establish
the linkage mentioned above, based on a recent study in which Zuo
et al. (2008) have derived a theoretical nonlinear strength criterion
for rock-like material based on fracture mechanics, a criterion with
a similar mathematical expression to the HoekeBrown criterion.
Hoek and Martin (2014) recently compared our theoretical criterion
with MohreCoulomb and Grifths criterion in Fig. 3 of their paper.
This study is an effort to extend the work of Zuo et al. (2008) by
including additional insights and analyses. The most important
issue in Zuo et al. (2008) is how to choose the failure characteristic
factor that relates the micro-mechanism to macro-failure, and our
study provides more physical justications for the chosen factor.
Also, the study of Zuo et al. (2008) was based on a two-dimensional
model for an initial sliding crack, while in this study we focus on
three-dimensional (3D) cases. In addition, we discuss how to
interpret the brittleeductile transition phenomenon in rocks.
2. Fundamental hypothesis and model
There is abundant evidence for the existence of Grifth cracks or
other crack-like aws in brittle materials (Grifth, 1921, 1924; Peng
and Johnson, 1972; Schovanec, 1986; Mura, 1987; Vardoulakis and
Papamichos, 1991). In addition, the low strength of some brittle
materials results mainly from the presence of these micro-cracks or
aws. In the present work, we assume that numerous Grifth
micro-cracks are randomly distributed in rocks. A model of fric-
tional sliding cracks has been discussed in the literature (Cook,
1965; Holcomb, 1978; Kachanov, 1982a, b; Li and Yang, 2006).
Although the crack interactions can be taken into account by
modications of a self-consistent method, in this paper, these
micro-crack interactions are neglected, so that traction on crack
faces can be calculated as being induced by external load. In this
way, a simplied model for a sliding, disk-shaped, closed crack of
diameter 2a in an innite plate can be generated, as shown in Fig. 1.
We adopt the convention common in geologic and rock mechanics
literature that compressive stress is positive and tensile stress is
negative, and designate the major, intermediate, and minor prin-
cipal stresses as s1, s2, s3, respectively, where the three subscripts
represent the coordinate axes x1, x2, x3, respectively. The orientation
of a disk-shaped crack can be dened by direction cosines l, m, n. If a
unique sphere is built up with the following equation:
l2 m2 n2 1
then the orientation of the crack plane is determined by the
normal direction of point M. The normal stress sn and shear stress
Fig. 1. A disk-shaped crack of diameter 2a in an innite plate under triaxial
compression.
sn components on the disk-shaped crack can be given in terms of
the three principal stresses, and as a function of the direction
cosines l, m, n:
sn l2 s1 m2 s2 n2 s3 (2)
s2n l2 s21 m2 s22 n2 s23  s2n (3)
3. Propagation conditions for a disk-shaped crack
Although inelastic effects are involved at crack tips in various
rocks (Hoagland et al., 1973), and even elastic behavior in the most
highly stressed regions may be nonlinear, the practical analysis of
the stress distribution in the neighborhood of the crack tip is
usually based on the classical linear theory of elasticity. Therefore,
according to linear elastic fracture mechanics (Anderson, 2005), the
crack mode in Fig. 1 is in-plane shear (Mode II), a mode corre-
sponding to in-plane shear loading that tends to slide one crack
face with respect to the other. The stress intensity factor depends
on both shear stress sn and friction stress sm, which is parallel to the
crack plane. According to Amontons law, sm msn, where m and sn
are the friction coefcient for the pre-existing sliding crack surface
and the normal stress acting on the disk plane, respectively. It is
obvious that sm is a key factor in suppressing crack propagation. The
effective shear stress se can be expressed as
se jsn j  msn (4)
For the 3D problem, the effective shear stress se initiates fric-
tional sliding. In addition, if se is sufciently high to overcome the
frictional resistance along the initial crack, frictional slip results in
tensile stress concentrations at the two tips of the sliding crack,
which, in turn, may induce nucleation of wing cracks (Kachanov,
1982a). Prior to the onset of crack propagation, the maximum stress
intensity factor KIImax of mode II at the initial crack tip approxi-
mately is
p
4se a
KIImax p (5)
2  n p
where n is the Poissons ratio.
(1)
If the wing crack length is innitesimal, the propagation con-
ditions for a disk-shaped crack under triaxial compression, based
on the mixed fracture criterion, can be expressed as (Kachanov,
1982b; Cotterell and Rice, 1980):
KIImax  KIIc kKIc (6)
where KIc and KIIc are the fracture toughness of Mode I and Mode II,
respectively; k is a proportionality factor, which may be determined
by a mixed fracture criterion of linear elastic fracture mechanics.
p
For example, k is 31  n=2 2n  n2 for the maximum strain
energy criterion for plain stress (Sih and Macdonald, 1974; Sih,
1974); k is 0.886 for the maximum stress criterion (Erdogan and
Sih, 1963); and k is 1 for the maximum energy release rate crite-
rion (Nuismer, 1975).
Because the wing crack is caused by the local tensile stress at the
disk-shaped crack tip, the fracture toughness KIc can be calculated
as
p
KIc 2st a=p (7)
where st is the local tensile strength at the tip of the disk-shaped
crack. Substituting Eqs. (5) and (7) into Eq. (6), we then get:
 J. Zuo et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 361e366
 n
se  1  kst
2
Using b to denote 1  n=2k, Eq. (8) can then be rewritten as
se  bst
4. The attitude angle parameter f to characterize micro-
failure orientation
Assume there is a sphere with a unit length radius, with the
coordinate origin O as the center of the sphere. Based on the geo-
metric symmetry of sphere, one can concentrate on the eight equal
parts in the sphere, as shown in Fig. 2. Since there are numerous
Grifth micro-cracks distributed randomly in rock materials, we
assume that all these cracks will converge. Assuming the move-
ment of one endpoint of any disk-shaped crack to the coordinate
origin O, there develops an intersection point between the normal
line of any cracks between the normal line of any cracks and the
surface of the upper hemisphere. For n rock samples under triaxial
compression, all intersection points can make up an intersection
region that depends on the three principal stresses. Although evi-
dence has shown that s2 does inuence the failure of rock (Al-Ajmi
and Zimmerman, 2005), the shape of the intersection region is
rather complicated under true triaxial compression (s1 > s2 > s3).
Therefore, we discuss only the special case of s1 > s2 s3. Ac-
cording to the axial symmetry, these intersection points will make
up a band region located on two latitude lines AB and CD (the
shadow region in Fig. 2). An angle q is used to denote the micro-
failure orientation angle under triaxial compression. The angle q
corresponds to the angle a in Zuo et al. (2008), and they have the
same physical meaning, i.e. micro-failure orientation angle.
When s2 s3, Eq. (2) becomes the following form derived from Eq.
(1) and cosq l:
sn s1 cos2 q s3 sin2 q
Then, Eq. (3) can be further simplied as
s2n l2 1  l2 s1  s3 2 or sn cos q sin qs1  s3
From Eqs. (4) and (9)e(11), we can get
Fig. 2. The band region of intersecting point between the normal line of any micro-
cracks and unit sphere.
363
(8) cos q sin qs1  s3  ms1 cos2 q s3 sin2 q  bst (12)
Let the dimensionless parameters s1 and s3 stand for s1/st and
s3/st, respectively. With the corresponding trigonometric trans-
(9) formation, Eq. (12) can be rewritten as
ms3 btan2 q  s1  s3 tan q ms3 b  0 (13)
Then, we have
tan q1  tan q  tan q2 (14)
where
q
s1  s3 H s1  s3 2  4ms1 bms3 b
tanqq1 (15)
2 2ms1 b
An attitude angle can be dened, i.e. f q2  q1, then we have
q
s1  s3 2  4ms1 bms3 b
tan f (16)
ms1 s3 2b
Eq. (16) gives the relationship between attitude angle f and
external load. In addition, the range of the attitude angle f is from
0 to p/2.
5. The failure characteristic factor for rocks and derivation of
the HoekeBrown criterion
Rock failure processes can be approximately described as fol-
lows. There are various pre-existing micro-cracks in rock materials
that are potentially of vital signicance to their brittle behavior.
When the external load achieves a critical value, pre-existing (and
some new) micro-cracks will initiate and propagate. These micro-
cracks will tend not to propagate in their own planes, but rather
swing into an orientation more nearly parallel to the orientation of
the major principal stress s1 (Diederichs, 2003). With a further
(10)
increase in external load, some subcritical micro-cracks will
initiate, propagate, and tend to become unstable. When numerous
micro-failures approach a critical condition, a macro-failure will
(11) occur, and the rock will then be broken. By contrast, micro-failures
are usually constrained by the conning pressure s3; thus, the
higher the conning pressure, the smaller the micro-failure.
In Section 3, we obtained an expression for the portion of micro-
cracks that are subjected to micro-damage. The key issue is how to
relate this damage to macro-failures. The latter is determined by
two microscopic variables. The rst variable is the attitude angle, f.
Obviously, a larger f corresponds to a larger relative portion of
damaged internal micro-cracks, and thus to a larger possibility for
macro-failure.
The second variable is jvf=vs1 j, the change rate in f with respect
to the dimensionless axial stress. This variable reects the stability
of the rock (for the given f) under further stress increase. A larger
jvf=vs1 j means a larger degree of instability in the rock with further
stress increase (or a larger possibility for macro-failure). There is
considerable laboratory evidence that near macro-failure, the
number of observed damaged/activated micro-cracks increases
quickly with stress (Paterson and Wong, 2005; Jaeger et al., 2007).
Therefore, the failure characteristic factor (F) can be expressed as
 
fvf
F   (17)
vs 1
The parameter F must exceed a critical value for macro-failure to
occur. Note that Eq. (17), while the simplest mathematical
364 J. Zuo et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 361e366

expression for relating microscopic variables f and jvf=vs1 j to factor could be used as a damage variable in damage mechanics
macro-failure, is justied by its consistency with our above dis- studies, because it is more or less equivalent to the HoekeBrown
cussion. (We acknowledge that the relationship between micro- criterion, as we have demonstrated here. Note that how to choose
scopic variables and macro-failure cannot be rigorously and the damage variable is at present a key issue in the damage me-
uniquely determined at this stage. Nevertheless, Eq. (17) can be chanics community.
considered a reasonable rst step.) In many cases, we expect f to be
small, given the fact that observed micro-damage often occurs 6. The micro-mechanisms of brittleeductile transitions
along narrow bands in rock samples. Thus, f can be approximately
replaced by sinf in Eq. (17). Eq. (17) then becomes It is usually accepted that material failure is brittle type if no
  apparent plastic deformation takes place before fracturing. In
vcos f
F   (18) ductile failure, by contrast, extensive plastic deformation takes
vs1  place. Experimental results indicate that while most rocks exhibit
brittleness under atmospheric pressure, ductility in rock can also be
From Eq. (16), we have
achieved in the laboratory with the aid of sufciently high
  conning pressures and temperatures (Paterson and Wong, 2005;
m s b=m
cos f p 1 2 3 (19) Jaeger et al., 2007). In other words, there exists a critical condi-
1 m2 s1  s3
tion for the transition from brittleness to ductility. In this paper, we
For s3 0 (or s3 0), the above equation becomes concern with the effects of conning pressure. The brittleeductile
transition occurs when the external conning pressure reaches a
 
m b=m critical value. The state in which this change happens is called a
cos f p 1 2 (20)
1 m2 s1 brittleeductile transition state. In addition, the investigation of the
brittleeductile transition has become very important in many
Substituting Eq. (19) into Eq. (18) yields geologic situations, and may also have relevance to some engi-
  neering applications.
vcos f m 2s3 2b=m
  Studies of brittleeductile transition phenomena have been re-
 vs  p (21)
1 1 m2 s1  s3 2 ported by a number of researchers (Paterson and Wong, 2005;
Jaeger et al., 2007). However, most of these studies are from a
We can determine the critical F value (corresponding to macro-
macroscopic or phenomenological point of view, and take no ac-
failure) through a uniaxial compression experiment. Substituting
count of the micro-mechanisms, especially the micro-crack
the uniaxial compression conditions s1 sc =st sc and s3 0
mechanisms under high conning pressure. For example, some
into Eq. (21), we have
investigators articially dene the failure of rock as brittle type (or
  ductile type) if the value of strain or conning pressure of failure is
vcos f m 2b
 
 vs  p (22) less than (or larger than) a specic value. For example, the strain
1 1 m2 ms2c value of 3%e5% corresponding to failure is often taken for dening
Consequently, the critical value for F is the right part of Eq. (22). the brittleeductile transition (Heard, 1960; Evans et al., 1990). Some
Substituting this value into Eq. (21), we have investigators have proposed that, as a general rule, the brittlee
ductile transition should be related to the strength of rocks (Mogi,
r
m 2 2005). For instance, in silicate rocks under compression, it occurs
s1 s3 sc s3 s2c (23)
b when the conning pressure is equal to roughly 1/3 the stress
difference at failure; in carbonate rocks, at about 1/4 the stress
Substituting the two parameters s1 s1 =st and s3 s3 =st difference. The ductility of rock in extension requires much higher
back into Eq. (23), we obtain conning pressures (Heard, 1960). However, in the case of porous
r sandstone, the transition to ductility occurs at an effective
m sc
s1 s3 sc s3 s2c (24) conning pressure of about 0.15 times the critical effective pressure
b st for the onset of grain crushing under hydrostatic pressure (Wong
et al., 1997). In other words, there is no strict or unied standard
where m is about 0.2e0.8 (Paterson and Wong, 2005). The param-
from which to choose the critical parameter for the brittleeductile
eters m, b, st, sc depend on rock properties, and all can be obtained
transition. Parameter selection varies with individual investigator
from experimental data.
or rock types, indicating the difculty in making clear and strict
The original HoekeBrown empirical criterion is (Hoek and
denitions of the brittleeductile transition point on a macroscale.
Brown, 1980a, b):
Therefore, it is necessary to revisit the concepts of brittle, ductile,
q and brittleeductile transition states for the micro/mesoscale. This
s1 s3 msc s3 ss2c (25) section provides some new information on the subject.
In light of the previous derivation of the strength criterion, we
where m and s are the material parameters for the rock. With s 1 dene the brittleeductile transition as occurring in rock when the
for intact rock, Eq. (25) becomes conning pressure achieves a suitable value. That value is achieved
q when the micro-failure in rock is completely restrained. This is a
s1 s3 msc s3 s2c (26) denition of the rock brittleeductile transition point at the micro/
mesoscale. Since there is clearly a causal relationship between
Thus, Eq. (24) is the same as Eq. (26) for m msc/(bst). In other micro-failure and rock dilatancy, this denition is entirely equiva-
words, we are able to derive the HoekeBrown criterion from micro- lent to the macro-denition.
mechanical considerations, based on the failure characteristic fac- According to this denition, the conning pressure value for the
tor dened in Eq. (17). This fact in itself strongly supports the brittleeductile transition point can be derived as follows. Previ-
reasonableness and usefulness of our failure characteristic factor. ously, we used the attitude angle f to characterize the micro-failure
While it is beyond the scope of this study, we speculate that this orientation, and the relationship between the angle f and external
 J. Zuo et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 361e366 365

load was derived. It has also been proved that the use of
jvcos f=vs1 j as a rock brittle-failure characteristic factor is in
accordance with the HoekeBrown empirical criterion.
Obviously, when the conning pressure increases to a specic
value s*3 , the internal micro-failure is completely restrained when
the rock is broken. In this case, the corresponding value of f is 0.
According to Eqs. (16) and (22), we have
p 2
  1 m2 cos f=m  1
vcos f m m
 
 vs  p 2s3 2b=m
p brittleeductile transition.
1 1 m2 1 m2 ms2c
Substituting f 0 and s3 s*3 into Eq. (27), we have
" q 2 #
1 s2c
s*3 1 m2  m  b
m 4b
Eq. (28) is the critical condition with respect to the brittlee
ductile transition for rocks. This formula indicates that the greater
sc sc =st of the rock, the greater the conning pressure s*3 that
triggers the brittleeductile transition. This is consistent with the
experimental results. In addition, the critical conning pressure of
the brittleeductile transition is also related to the friction coef-
cient m and the fracture parameter b of rocks.
An empirical failure criterion has also been proposed in Wong
et al. (1997), indicating that for most rocks, the conning pres-
sure must always be smaller than the uniaxial compressive
strength to maintain rock brittle behavior:
s*3  sc
To compare two criteria given by Eqs. (28) and (29), we plot
them in Fig. 3, together with experimental data from page 45 in
Mogi (2005). The gure shows that only when sc satises the
following condition, Eq. (29) is physically valid:
q 
2b
2b 1 m2 m  sc  r
p 2 (30)
m2 1 m2  m  m
This also means that Eq. (28) is in accord with Mogis criterion
under certain conditions. Fig. 3 also shows that when the value of sc
is less than left part of Eq. (30), rock does not exhibit brittle
behavior under compression. In addition, when sc is larger than
right part of Eq. (30), higher conning pressure is needed for a
2b
Obviously, to ensure that the rock exhibits brittle behavior un-
(27) der triaxial pressure, we must have s*3 > 0. According to Eq. (28),
this requires
q 
sc  2b 1 m2 m
(28) (31)
Eq. (31) indicates that (the ratio of rock uniaxial compressive
strength sc to uniaxial tensile strength st) is an important param-
eter for evaluating rock brittleness. The greater this ratio, the more
brittle the rock, and vice versa.
7. Conclusions
A 3D crack model is employed to theoretically derive the Hoeke
Brown rock failure criterion based on the linear elastic fracture
theory. Specically, we argue that our proposed failure character-
istic factor needs to exceed a critical value when macro-failure
occurs. This factor is a product of a micro-failure orientation
angle (characterizing the density and orientation of damaged
(29)
micro-cracks) and the changing rate of the angle with respect to the
major principal stress (characterizing the microscopic stability of
damaged cracks). We further demonstrate that the factor mathe-
matically leads to the empirical HoekeBrown rock failure criterion.
One important implication of the study is that the proposed factor

+ +

=c

c
= +

o c
+ +

Fig. 3. The relationship between the conning pressure s*3 at brittlenesseductility transition and the value of sc/st.
366 J. Zuo et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 361e366
is able to relate the evolution of microscopic damaged-crack char-
acteristics to macro-failure.
Based on our theoretical development, this paper also gives a
clear interpretation of the brittleness and ductility of rock on the
microscale. A quantitative relationship between the brittleeductile
transition point and conning pressure is derived and shown to be
consistent with experimental observations.
Conict of interest
The authors wish to conrm that there are no known conicts of
interest associated with this publication and there has been no
signicant nancial support for this work that could have inu-
enced its outcome.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (No. 51374215), Fok Ying Tung Education Founda-
tion (No. 142018), Beijing Major Scientic and Technological
Achievements into Ground Cultivation Project and the 111 Project
(No. B14006). The second author (Huihai Liu) thanks the manage-
ment of Aramco Research Center for approving publication of the
work. Also, the authors would like to acknowledge the anonymous
reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions, which
helped to signicantly improve the quality of this paper.
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Jianping Zuo obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from China
University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), China. He is
professor of Engineering Mechanics at the China Univer-
sity of Mining and Technology (Beijing) where he has been
Head of the Department of Engineering Mechanics, School
of Mechanics and Civil Engineering. He has been involved
in rock mechanics and mining engineering research,
consulting and teaching for more than 10 years. He is in
charge of and/or participates in 12 scientic research
projects, which were funded by National Natural Science
Foundation of China, National Basic Research Program of
China (973 Program), Beijing Major Scientic and Tech-
nological Achievements into Ground Cultivation Project,
the 111 Project and Coal Mines Corporations. He is the
author or co-author of more than 90 scientic papers. He has received 3 national pat-
ents, and 2 Natural Science and Technology Progress Awards. In recent years, he has
been awarded National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award (2009), New Century
Excellent Talents of the Ministry of Education (2009), Coal Youth Science and Technol-
ogy Award in China (2010), Beijing Outstanding Young Talent (2014), Fok Excellent
Young Teachers Award (2014).