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ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK APPLICATIONS IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

Over the last few years or so, the use of artificial neural networks ( ANNs) has increased in many areas of engineering. In particular, ANNs have been applied to many geotechnical engineering problems and have demonstrated some degree of success. A review of the literature reveals that ANNs have been used successfully in pile capacity prediction, modelling soil behaviour, site characterisation, earth retaining structures, settlement of structures, slope stability, design of tunnels and underground openings, liquefaction, soil permeability and hydraulic conductivity, soil compaction, soil swelling and classification of soils. The objective of this paper is to provide a general view of some ANN applications for solving some types of geotechnical engineering problems. It is not intended to describe the ANNs modelling issues in geotechnical engineering. The paper also does not intend to cover every single application or scientific paper that found in the literature. For brevity, some works are selected to be described in some detail, while others are acknowledged for reference purposes. The paper then discusses the strengths and limitations of ANNs compared with the other modelling approaches. The engineering properties of soil and rock exhibit varied and uncertain behaviour due to the complex and imprecise physical processes associated with the formation of these materials (Jaksa 1995). This is in contrast to most other civil engineering materials, such as steel, concrete and timber, which exhibit far greater homogeneity and isotropy. In order to cope with the complexity of geotechnical behaviour, and the spatial variability of these materials, traditional forms of engineering design models are justifiably simplified. An alternative approach, which has been shown to have some degree of success, is based on the data alone to determine the structure and parameters of the model . The technique is known as artificial neural networks ( ANNs) and is well suited to model complex problems where the relationship between the model variables is unknown (Hubick 1992). This paper is intended to be for readers in the field of geotechnical engineering who are not familiar with artificial neural networks. The paper aims to detail some features associated with ANNs through a review for some of their applications to-date in geotechnical engineering. It is hoped that this review may attract more geotechnical engineers to pay better attention to this promising tool. The paper starts with a brief overview of the structure and operation of the ANNs and gives a general overview of most ANN applications that have appeared in the geotechncial engineering literature. Finally, the paper discusses the relative success of ANNs in predicting various geotechnical engineering properties and behaviour.