Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 23 (2003) 631636

www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn

Evaluation of liquefaction potential using neural-networks

and CPT results
M.H. Baziara,*, N. Nilipourb,1
a
College of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, Tehran 16844, Iran
b
Laboratory of Hydraulic Constructions, Department of Civil Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Accepted 30 April 2003

Abstract
In this research, a reliable Cone Penetration Test data set was gathered with a wide range of parameters. This data was incorporated in a
Neural-Networks computer software called STATISTICA Neural-Networks. The back propagation algorithm with a multilayer perceptron
network is utilized to analyze the liquefaction occurrence in different sites. In this study, different sets of effective parameters for the neural-
network analyses are selected such that to reduce the noise and to obtain more accurate results.
Considering the relative importance of effective parameters in liquefaction assessment, it is indicated that s0 ; s00 together play a more
important role than what previously was assumed and hence the relative importance of the qc and seismic parameters are decreased compared
with the previous works. The results presented here have more accuracy than previous works while at the same time, the range of the
parameters used in this study is much wider than what was previously used. This range of parameters makes the proposed method applicable
for practical purposes.
q 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Neural-network; Back propagation; Liquefaction; Cone penetration test

1. Introduction difficulties in obtaining undisturbed samples of loose

On many occasions, liquefaction occurs during earth-
quakes. It is known as one of the most destructive
phenomena caused by earthquake and has been widely
seen in loose saturated sands soil deposit (Niigata 1964,
Alaska 1964, Tangshan 1979, Loma Prieta 1989, Kobe
1995, Turkey 1998, etc.). Increase in pore water pressure,
due to seismic shaking by the earthquake, causes the loose
saturated sandy soils to liquefy and lateral spreading, sand
boils, ground oscillations, settlements, etc. to appear at the
surface.
Since 1970, scientists have conducted extensive research
and have proposed many methods to predict the occurrence
of liquefaction. In the beginning, undrained cyclic loading
laboratory tests had been used to evaluate the liquefaction
potential of a soil under a special cyclic loading, which
simulates an earthquake excitation [1]. But due to
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: 98-21-7491031.
E-mail addresses: baziar@iust.ac.ir (M.H. Baziar); nima.nilipour@
epfl.ch (N. Nilipour).
1
Tel.: 41-21-634-6359; fax: 41-21-693-2264.
0267-7261/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0267-7261(03)00068-X
sandy soils, since 1980s many researchers have preferred
to use in situ tests to evaluate liquefaction and lateral
spreading potential [2]. The Standard Penetration Test
because of its simplicity was one of the first in situ tests to be
widely used. Later Robertson and Companella [3], Shibata
and Teparaska [4] and Stark and Olson [5] adopted the Cone
Penetration Test (CPT) for evaluating liquefaction potential.
In order to evaluate liquefaction potential, it is necessary
to find out what parameters control liquefaction occurrence,
including: earthquake parameters, soil properties, and stress
conditions. In recent years, Artificial Intelligence has
introduced a useful and powerful computational tool,
Artificial Neural-Networks (NN), for solving complicated
multifactor problems. By using this powerful tool, liquefac-
tion potential can be estimated more accurately than by
conventional methods [6,7]. For this type of analysis, there
is no need to normalize and calibrate parameters since NN
can consider all effective parameters together and find the
relations between them. In the first attempt at using NN and
CPT data for liquefaction assessment, researchers achieved
the same accuracy as the conventional method [8]. Using
632 M.H. Baziar, N. Nilipour / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 23 (2003) 631636

a database with a wider range of parameters and larger data

set, and selecting the proper parameters as input, a NN
model can be improved with respect to accuracy, and the
relative importance of each parameter will be established
more reliably. It is also anticipated that utilizing powerful
NN software enables us to get more accurate results than the
previous works.

2. Neural-networks

One of the more popular types of network is the

Multi-Layer Perceptron associated with the back
propagation algorithm [9], which is a supervised learning
algorithm.
Back propagation is widely used in prediction problems
such as weather forecasting, and stock market prices. In this
algorithm, weight of the synapses and connection between
neurons are modified in a way that the corresponding output
of each input data gets closer to the desired value. In other
words, the global error of the network gets minimized. The
most common error function is sum-squared function. In
this research, in order to utilize NN, powerful software,
STATISTICA Neural-Network has been used. The formu-
lation of Back Propagation algorithm in STATISTICA
Neural-Network is defined as [10]
Dwi;j t hdj oi aDwi;j t 2 1 1
where wi;j is synapses weight between neuron i and j; t is
number of epochs, a is momentum, h is learning rate, dj is
local gradient error and oi is output of neuron i:
The important characteristic of this software is its
flexibility, which helps users to do the learning process
successfully and minimize the error as much as possible.
The Multi-Layer Perceptron should have at least three layers
including: input, hidden, and output layers (Fig. 1). Multi-
Layer Perceptron can have more than one hidden layer, but
usually one hidden layer is enough for modeling any
complicated problem. Actually the most important stage in
designing Multi-Layer Perceptron is to optimize the number
of neurons in the hidden layer. If the number of neurons in
hidden layer is less than optimal, the training process cannot
reach the global minimum error or the network is not able to
learn properly. If the number of neurons in hidden layer is
more than optimal, the possibility of over-learning or over-
fitting becomes a problem.
Considering the number of neurons in input/output
layers, the complexity of problem and the size of the
database, the network designer should determine the
optimal number of neurons in hidden layer [10].
After designing the network; with selection of the
proper number of neurons in each layer, suitable
activation/error and summation functions, and preparing
the training and testing data sets, the learning process
should be initiated. The initialization process includes:
specifying initial values of synapses, learning rate and
Fig. 1. Schematic figures of an artificial neural-network.
momentum. Since the Back Propagation algorithm
explores the error surface in order to find global minimum
error, repeating the training process and initializing the
values of synapses randomly each time, will increase the
chance of reaching the global minimum error. As a matter
of fact, one of the advantages of the NN is its ability for
looking for minimum global error in an n-dimensional
space instead of just checking errors in different sets of
two- or three-dimensional spaces. In other words for the
case of liquefaction studied in this paper, instead of trying
to show boundaries in two-dimensional graphs, using
calibrated parameters, or eventually three-dimensional
graphs by presenting a liquefaction boundary for each
type of liquefiable soils, such as what has been done in
conventional methods, the NN model presents the
boundary in a n-dimensional space.
Also by making proper changes in the controlling
parameters, learning rate and momentum, or using especial
options such as noise and jug weight, different paths in the
error surface can be explored to find the global minimum
error. In other words, having constant values of learning
rate, momentum and noise during training process and using
same values for all synapses in the initializing stage, limits
the chance of reaching the global minimum error. It has to
be noted that the desired minimum error should be
considered for both training and testing data sets. In other
words, over-learning causes high accuracy in training stage
but low accuracy in testing stage, which is not acceptable for
prediction purposes.
 M.H. Baziar, N. Nilipour / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 23 (2003) 631636
3. Data set
In order to solve a problem utilizing NN, having a proper
data set is the most important requirement. For the data set,
three main characteristics are required: (1) reliability, which
includes being real and accurate, (2) having sufficient data
in relation to the dimensions and complexity of the problem
and (3) covering all aspects of the problem.
Stark in 1995 [5] compiled the 180 cases and proposed a
method to assess liquefaction potential. Robertson and
Wride [11] later used this data set to propose new method
for liquefaction assessment. They also introduced a new
variable called Ic for their liquefaction assessment. Finally,
Youd et al. [12], used the data set compiled by Stark and
Suzuky and modified the Robertson boundaries for assess-
ment of liquefaction potential. Due to the fact that there are
some questions regarding validity of Ic for soil classification
especially for silty sand material, it was decided to focus on
Stark method. Furthermore, accuracy of two new methods is
not much different with the method proposed by Stark.
In this research, 170 field case histories were selected
from a total of 180 case records compiled by Stark [5]. The
10 cases, discarded in this study, were those with some
effective parameters such as soil mean grain size D50 or qc
missing. The data set consists of 16 cases from Japan
(Niigata 1964 and Nihonkai Chubu 1983), 57 cases from
USA (San Fernando Valley 1971, Imperial Valley 1979 and
Loma Preiata 1989), 85 cases from China (Haicheng 1975
and Tangshan 1976), 5 cases from Romania (Vrancea 1977)
and 7 cases from Canada (Sanguenay 1988). Liquefaction
occurred at 104 of these sites. The remaining 66 sites did not
liquefy. Since the percentage of fines content, FC, was not
available for all cases, FC cannot be considered as an input
parameter in the process.
In all cases, the appearance of sand boils, settlement or
lateral ground spreading were as indications of liquefaction
occurrence.
The data set used in this work has more case records than
the data set used in the previous work [8]. The Imperial
Valley 1979 data compiled by Shibata and Teparaska [4]
and used in Goh [8], have different maximum surface
accelerations, amax ; from those reported by Stark [5].
Considering the reference research performed by Youd
and Bennett [13] and other investigators [14 16], it seems
that the 0.6 g reported by Stark [5], is more reliable than the
0.8 g used by Goh [8] for amax in Heber Road site during
Imperial Valley 1979 earthquake.
4. Preprocessing
Before using a data set to train the NN, in order to avoid
any inaccuracy and obtain better training results, the data set
should be preprocessed. Replacing yes with 1 for
liquefaction cases and no with 0 for non-liquefaction
cases, the data set becomes completely numerical. Numerical
633
preprocessing includes scaling and shifting of all values of
data set in a way that all input parameters vary in the same
range, e.g. [0,1], using mean value and difference of
minimum and maximum values of each parameter.
5. Data analysis
Considering range of the output [0,1], the logistic
function is the proper activation function. Other functions
such as the sigmoid function also were tested, but results
confirmed the superiority of the logistic function as an
activation function for modeling liquefaction using NN.
Other parts of network such as the number of neurons in the
hidden layer, learning rate, momentum and noise level have
to be chosen during the training process, depending on the
circumstances and by monitoring error level.
In this study, normalized and calibrated parameters such
as qc1 ; and SSR unlike earlier studies have not been used as
an input parameter, due to making the data set noisy and not
suitable for the training process. In other words, the main
reason for utilizing NN in complicated and multifactor
problems is its ability to find reliable relations between basic
parameters while analyzing all the effective parameters at
the same time.
At the beginning of the training process, random values
were used as weights. Since during the training process, we
explore the error surface for a global minimum, the initial
values play important role in this procedure. Therefore for
each NN model, the training process has been conducted
several times, each time with different random synapses
values to reach results with least errors.
In order to compare the performance of the software and
methodology used in the training process, proposed model
in Goh [8], B5, with the same data set is trained, utilizing
STATISTICA Neural-Network. As it is shown in Table 1,
obtained relative importance using this software is compar-
able with values reported by Goh [8]. It can be seen that the
relative importance of qc in B5 Model is very significant
compared with other parameters. The same input parameters
(D50 ; a; s00 ; qc ; M) were used in training model N5, using
selected data set in this study. The relative importance of
parameters was different and despite larger number of cases,
the error was less. According to Table 1, relative importance
Table 1
Comparison of obtained relative importance (%) of parameters
Relative importance (%)
D50 a s00 qc M
B5 in Goh paper [8] 12.9 17.2 16.2 36.6 17.3
B5, with STATISTICA 15.7 18.1 14.4 40.8 11.0
and Goh data
N5 B5 with STATISTICA 17.2 15.3 27.6 26.9 13.0
and Stark data
634 M.H. Baziar, N. Nilipour / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 23 (2003) 631636

Table 2
Results and details of designed neural-networks models

Model Input parameters No. of neurons in Error and accuracy (%)

hidden layer
Training Testing

N5 D50 ; a; s00 ; qc ; M 5 1 99 1 97
N6-s0 D50 ; a; s00 ; qc ; M; s0 5 0 100 1 97
N6-FC D50 ; a; s00 ; qc ; M; FC 5 0 100 2 80
N7-Z D50 ; a; s00 ; qc ; M; s0 ; Z 6 0 100 2 94

of s00 and qc in N5 model are significantly changed (about the multidimensional space, five-dimensional in case of
13%) compared with B5 models and it shows almost the Model N5 and six-dimensional in case of Model N6,
same relative importance value for s00 as for qc : This finding liquefaction boundaries could be presented by projecting the
indicates that in liquefaction potential assessment, effective obtained multidimensional boundary on two- or three-
stress plays a more important role than what model B5 dimensional sub-spaces. Therefore, in any sets of two- or
represented. Due to a higher level of accuracy and a wider three-dimensional sub-space, the error will not be more than
range of parameters in model N5, it can be concluded that the global error in multidimensional reference space.
the proposed relative importance values are more realistic However, these projected boundaries are only valid for those
than those suggested by model B5 in Ref. [8]. fixed value of the effective parameters based on which the
The methodology for calculating the relative importance, boundaries are projected and derived. Hence for a hypothetical
used in this study, was suggested by Garson [17]. earthquake with constant value of M and, amax ; liquefaction
Although adding more effective parameters as input boundaries can be obtained for specific stress condition, using
parameter to NN may logically lead to more accurate results, Model N6-s0 : The results show that corresponding liquefac-
but the unavailability and difficulty of achieving more useful tion boundaries of different values of effective stress in
parameters in liquefaction assessment, such as relative function of D50 ; and qc are almost parallel. This reveals the
density, void ratio, etc. considered as the main limitations. direct relation between effective stress and liquefaction
The effective parameters in liquefaction assessment, in occurrence, while the total stress assumed to be constant.
general, can be classified into three main groups: (1) stress As it is seen in Table 2, the other three models have zero
conditions, (2) soil parameters and (3) seismic parameters. error in the training process and one or two errors in the
The most usual and available effective parameters are testing process. It can be concluded that the N6-s0 model
total stress, effective stress and depth in Group (1), median gives higher accuracy and lower relative importance for qc
grain diameter and fines content in Group (2), and with respect to the other presented models. Although
magnitude and peak acceleration of earthquake in Group
(3). Since stress conditions and soil parameters affect CPT
results, qc can be placed in both Groups (1) and (2). As qc is
affected by several parameters, models with additional
available input parameters such as s0 and Z (depth of soil
layer) from Group (1) and FC from Group (2) are designed
in order to decrease the relative importance of qc : The
lowering of relative importance of qc as well as the exertion
of the direct effect of additional parameters decrease the
noise of the data set and lead to obtain models with better
training and generalization results.
N6- s0 ; N7-Z and N6-FC models with additional
parameters with respect to N5 model were studied. Table 2
shows the input parameters, number of neurons in hidden
layer and accuracy in the training and testing phases for
different NN models studied in this paper. As it is seen for
the N5 model, there is one error in the training and one error
in the testing processes.
Fig. 2 depicts the projection of five dimensional space (D50 ;
a; s00 ; qc ; M) in two-dimensional spaces of D50 ; and qc for
the N5 model. As it is seen for the Tangshan Earthquake and
with s00 100 kPa, there is only one error for training stage. It Fig. 2. Liquefaction boundary for 1976 Tangshan Earthquake (M 7:8;
should be mentioned that after minimizing the global error in amax 0:2 g and s00 100 kPa) using model N5.
 M.H. Baziar, N. Nilipour / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 23 (2003) 631636 635

Table 3 Table 5
Obtained relative importance (%) of input parameters Range of parameters in the reference data set

Relative importance (%) s0 s00 s0 2 s00 qc D50 M a

(kPa) (kPa) (kPa) (kPa) (mm) (Richter) (g)
D50 a s00 qc M s0 FC Z
Min 16.7 13.9 0 0.38 0.016 5.9 0.1
N5 17.2 15.3 27.6 26.9 13.0 Max 296.3 227.5 123.8 26 0.48 7.8 0.6
N6-s0 14.4 14.0 14.2 23.1 11.3 23.0 Average 114.48 78.69 35.79 6.47 0.17 7.29 0.28
N6-FC 13.4 8.1 29.9 26.9 14.0 7.7
N7-Z 15.4 12.5 17.6 14.7 14.3 10.9 14.5
one error in the testing phase. It should be noted that 10
cases from Loma Prieta 1989, reported by Stark [5], due to
relative importance of s00 decreased, the sum of relative
uncertainty in D50 and qc were discarded in this research,
importance values of stress condition parameters (s00 and
and one of the cases which showed an error in the proposed
s0 ) increased. Since s00 and s0 are somehow dependent, it is
boundary for clean sand by Stark [5] was among these 10
better to consider their relative importance together as stress
discarded cases.
condition importance. Also having both s00 and s0 as input
Table 4 summarizes the accuracy of the different studies
parameters implicitly takes into account the effect of ground
mentioned in this paper. It can be seen that the conventional
water level and pore water pressure which are important
method of Stark [5] with the same data set as used in this
parameters in liquefaction occurrence.
research has the accuracy of almost 90%. It should be
Due to unavailability of FC for all cases, the data set used in
mentioned that other conventional methods, such as NCEER
model N6-FC has in total 80 cases, where 70 cases are selected
method [12], have the same accuracy as the Stark method.
for training and 10 cases for testing. Since both FC and D50 are
The previous NN study [8] also has the total accuracy of
soil parameters, by adding FC as an input parameter, a
97.2% but for 109 cases out of 180 cases reported by Stark,
decrease in relative importance of D50 was predictable.
while the presented study with model N6-s0 shows higher
In model N7-Z another stress condition parameter, Z; is
accuracy, 99% in total, despite larger number of cases.
added as an input parameter. In conventional methods [3,5]
The range of parameters of reference data used in this
a function of depth, rd ; was used to calibrate SSR and
study is presented in Table 5. As it is shown in this table, the
consider the effect of depth in order to determine a boundary
results of this work can be applicable to the most of practical
for liquefaction occurrence with qc1 and SSR. In this model
purposes. It should be mentioned that using data set with a
the effect of Z is directly exerted to calculation and caused
wider range or with the same range but with a larger number
considerable decrease of relative importance of qc : Table 3
of cases improves the generalization and applicability of
presents the relative importance of parameters for each
this method.
model obtained in this study. Due to the change in effective
parameters, relative importance of parameters changed.
In comparison with the conventional method using the
same data set [5], the results in this study are more 6. Summary and conclusions
accurate. Proposed liquefaction-potential boundaries given
by Stark [5] were not able to predict correctly 17 cases NN is a powerful tool in predicting the liquefaction
among a total of 180 cases (two errors for Clean Sand, potential and more accurate results than the conventional
seven errors for Silty Sand and eight errors for Silty Sand methods are obtained. No calibration and normalization
to Sandy Silt) while the NN results for the proposed model with respect to the other parameters is needed. Also the
of N6-s0 showed zero error in the training process and just relative importance of the effective parameters can be
compared.
Table 4 Using normalized and calibrated parameters make the
Accuracy of each method data set noisy and are not suitable for the training process. In
Total Total Total Number of cases and other words, NN has the ability to find the relations between
number number accuracy% accuracy basic parameters of a multifactor problem, helping to
of cases of errors achieve better results.
Training Testing Adding s0 as an input parameter causes lowering of
relative importance of qc and decreasing of the global error
Stark 180 17 90.5
Stark (with 170 16 90.6 in the network. s00 and s0 together play a more important
same cases role than qc in liquefaction assessment. s00 directly affects
as this study) the liquefaction potential, since obtained boundaries with
Goh [8] 109 3 97.2 74, 98.6% 35, 94.2% different values of s00 are almost parallel.
This study 170 1 99.4 134, 100% 36, 97.2%
In order to apply the results of proposed NN model for
N6-s0
practical problems, the range of the parameters in
636 M.H. Baziar, N. Nilipour / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 23 (2003) 631636
the reference data set has to be considered. Having more
CPT data, the proposed NN model can be improved in
generalization and applicability.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Professor Caro Lucas for his
Neural-Network advisory and providing technical support
from School of Intelligent Systems, Institute for Studies in
Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (IPM), Tehran, Iran.
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