10 Artificial Neural Networks

in Geotechnical Engineering:
Modeling and Application Issues
Sarat Kumar Das
Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology,
Rourkela, Odisha, India

10.1 Introduction
The evolution of computational geotechnical engineering analyses closely follows
the development in computational methods. At the early stage of geotechnical engi-
neering, analytical methods and the simple limit equilibrium method, coupled with
engineering expertise, were used to develop physical models of geotechnical
engineering problems. Over the years, finite element methods, finite difference
methods, and discrete element methods are used for difficult and complex pro-
blems. Unlike other engineering materials, the success of the above-mentioned
methods in applications in geotechnical engineering is hindered due to difficulty in
obtaining an accurate constitutive model and spatial variability of soil, particularly
for complex issues like liquefaction and pile capacity problems. Hence, based on
case histories/field tests, statistically derived empirical methods and semiempirical
methods based on analytical methods are more popular in such cases. The success
of these empirical and semiempirical methods depends to a great extent on the
chosen statistical/theoretical model for the system to be analyzed matching the
input
output data, as well as on the statistical methods used to find out the model
parameters (Das and Basudhar, 2006a). Very often, it is difficult to develop theoret-
ical/statistical models due to the complex nature of the problem and uncertainty in
soil parameters. These are situations where the data-driven approach has been
found to be more appropriate than the model-oriented approach. To take care of
such problems, artificial neural networks (ANNs) based on artificial intelligence
(AI) have been developed in the computational methods. Within a short period, it
found wide applicability, cutting across various disciplines. This has led to a
growth in research activities into the art of applying such methods to solve real-life
problems, highlighting the latent capabilities and drawbacks of such methods.
The application of ANNs in geotechnical engineering started in the early 1990s
by Goh (1994) and Ghaboussi and Sidarta (1998). With this pioneering work,

Metaheuristics in Water, Geotechnical and Transport Engineering. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-398296-4.00010-6

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