Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892

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Advances in Engineering Software

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Prediction of California bearing ratio (CBR) of ne grained soils by AI methods

T. Taskiran
Department of Civil Engineering, Dicle University Engineering and Architecture Faculty, 21280 Diyarbakir, Turkey

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

Article history: Advances in eld of articial intelligence (AI) offers opportunities of utilizing new algorithms and models
Received 25 September 2009 that enable researchers to solve the most complex systems. As in other engineering elds, AI methods
Received in revised form 2 December 2009 have widely been used in geotechnical engineering. Unlikely, there seems quite insufcient number of
Accepted 19 January 2010
research related to the use of AI methods for the estimation of California bearing ratio (CBR). There were
Available online 16 March 2010
actually some attempts to develop prediction models for CBR, but most of these models were essentially
statistical correlations. Nevertheless, many of these statistical correlation equations generally produce
Keywords:
unsatisfactory CBR values. However, this paper is likely one of the very rst research which aims to inves-
Articial neural network
Gene expression programming
tigate the applicability of AI methods for prediction of CBR. In this context, articial neural network
California bearing ratio (ANN) and gene expression programming (GEP) were applied for the prediction of CBR of ne grained
soils from Southeast Anatolia Region/Turkey. Using CBR test data of ne grained soils, some proper mod-
els are successfully developed. The results have shown that the both ANN and GEP are found to be able to
learn the relation between CBR and basic soil properties. Additionally, sensitivity analysis is performed
and it is found that maximum dry unit weight (cd) is the most effective parameter on CBR among the oth-
ers such as plasticity index (PI), optimum moisture content (wopt), sand content (S), clay + silt content
(C + S), liquid limit (LL) and gravel content (G) respectively.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction There were attempts to develop prediction models, considering

Engineering projects that involve earthwork such as road
embankment, airport runways and pavement construction often
requires construction of a proper subbase layer. These subbase lay-
ers should meet certain engineering requirements such as bearing
capacity, settlement and swell properties. Therefore, a method of
assessment of such earthworks is necessary and takes important
part among geotechnical and road engineering applications. Cali-
fornia bearing ratio (CBR) is one of the frequently used index test
to assess the stiffness modulus and shear strength of subgrade.
CBR is actually an indirect measure which indicates comparison
of the strength of subgrade material to the strength of standard
crushed rock mentioned in percentage values.
Engineers always come across with difculties in obtaining rep-
resentative CBR values for design. Due to limited budget and poor
planning conditions, insufcient soil investigation data are ob-
tained in many cases. On the other hand, laboratory CBR test is
not only laborious and time consuming but also the results some-
times are not accurate due to the sample disturbance and poor
quality of laboratory testing conditions. Therefore, development
of prediction models might be useful and become a base of the
judgment on the validity of the CBR values [1].
E-mail address: taha@dicle.edu.tr
that the CBR of soils are affected by the soil index properties in
some ways. However, most of these previous models were essen-
tially statistical correlations between CBR and classication data
and/or index properties of soil. Many researchers have conducted
studies to show the effect of soil types and characteristics on CBR
values. [25]. Some efforts devoted to correlate CBR with soil grain
distribution and plasticity. Among them, Black [2] developed a cor-
relation between CBR and plasticity index (PI) for cohesive soils.
Using the concept of suitably index, which varies with plasticity
and grading characteristics, a correlation for CBR was suggested
by de Graft-Johnson and Bhatia [3]. In there, the suitability index
was dened as below.
A
Suitability Index 1
LL logPI
where A = percentage passing 2.4 mm BS sieve, LL = liquid limit,
PI = plasticity index.
Agarwal and Ghanekar [4] tried to develop a correlation equa-
tion between CBR and either liquid limit (LL), plastic limit (PL) or
plasticity index (PI). However they were not able to nd any signif-
icant correlation among these parameters. Instead, they found an
improved correlation when optimum moisture content (wopt) and
LL are included. Hence, they suggested a correlation which was
only of sufcient accuracy for preliminary identication of mate-
rial. This correlation was presented below.

0965-9978/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.advengsoft.2010.01.003
 T. Taskiran / Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892
CBR 2:0  16:0  logwopt 0:07  LL 2 on soft computing, enable researchers to solve the most complex
The effect of each parameters such as grading constant (A),
mean grain size (d50), size factor (SF) and the granulometric mod-
ulus (MG) on CBR were analyzed by Doshi et al., [6]. It was found
that the grading constant (A) is the best parameter to describe
the inuence of grain size distribution on CBR. In the same study,
it was also reached that CBR is most dependent on maximum dry
density (MDD) and least dependent on wopt. Using A, MDD and wopt
as independent variables, several equations for CBR were
presented.
Stephens [7] carried out an investigation, in which archival data
were used, to evaluate performance of existing models for some se-
lected natal soils. He described the relationships between CBR and
various classication parameters (in both simple and multivariate
forms) and further examined that these models were found to be
generally unsatisfactory. In this study, the lack of any suitable cor-
relations for universally use was discussed and a good relationship
between CBR and maximum swell was examined. Inuence of clay
fraction on CBR was reported and the interim use of the shrinkage
and grading moduli to obtain minimum CBR values for shrinking
and non-shrinking soils respectively was proposed. Another meth-
od for the estimation of CBR were presented by the British High-
way Agency [8] made use of plasticity index for British soils
compacted at natural moisture content where the correlations
were given in the format of a table.
National Cooperative Highway Research Program of United
States of America (NCHRP) through the Guide for Mechanical
Empirical Design of New and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures
[5] suggested some correlations that describe the relationship be-
tween soil index properties and CBR. Two equations were proposed
where one was for non-plastic coarse-grained material and the
other was for soils which contain 12% nes and have some plastic-
ity. The best-tted equation proposed by NCHRP for clean, coarse-
grained soil was given as below.
CBR 28:09D60 0;358 3 pacted to optimum moisture content for determination of CBR
where D60 = diameter at 60% passing (mm).
This equation is limited to D60 values varying between 0.01 mm
and 30 mm. For D60 less than 0.01 mm, the recommended value of
CBR is 5% whereas CBR value of 95% is recommended for D60 great-
er than 30 mm. For plastic ne grained soils, the chosen soil index
properties to correlate CBR are the percentage passing No. 200 US
sieve or 0.075 mm size sieve and plasticity index. The suggested
equation by NCHRP is given below.
75
CBR 4
1 0:728wPI
where w = passing No. 200 US sieve (%).
However, when the previous researches are evaluated in gen-
eral, it is seen that satisfactory correlations could not be obtained
in many cases (even for some local soils). Many of proposed corre-
lation equation do not have high enough degree of correlation coef-
cient. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the estimation of
CBR is difcult using the conventional statistical methods. Besides,
for most studies CBR was expressed in terms of only one or two
soil properties group. The soil properties groups are used here-
in to refer to soil parameters belonging to plasticity, gradation and
compaction properties. For example PL belongs to plasticity group
while wopt is in compaction group. The reason for this unfavorable
picture is thought to be due to inadequate representation of soil
properties group, existence of complex relationships among the
parameters and unpowerful methods of calculations.
On the other hand, advances in the eld of articial intelligence
inuence many science topics as well as geotechnical engineering
applications. New algorithms and models, especially those based
887
systems in different ways. The use of forecast methods not based
on physics equations, such as ANN and GEP methods are becoming
widespread in various engineering elds. Unlikely, there is, proba-
bly, very poor number of research in literature which utilizes AI
methods for the estimation of CBR.
In the content of this study, taking the power of AI methods in
solving complex systems and capability of processing much more
parameters, ANN and GEP methods were applied for the prediction
of CBR of ne grained soils. To achieve this, 151 CBR test data of
ne grained soils were provided from 9th Regional Directorate of
Highways Diyarbakir which was carried out for the assessment
of base/subbase materials of the provincial roads of four city of
Southeast Anatolia Region. The data used were belonging to plas-
ticity properties (liquid limit, plasticity index), compaction proper-
ties (optimum moisture content, maximum dry unit weight) and
gradation properties (clay + silt, sand and gravel fractions).
2. Test soil database development and laboratory testing
In order to obtain data to establish models, 151 CBR test data
belonging to A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7 (AASHTO M 145) soil groups were
selected among 354 total tests. The remaining of the test data were
belonging to A1-A2-A3 soil groups. Tests were carried out for the
suitability assessment of soils to be use as base and subbase mate-
rial. Therefore, tested soils were collected from connecting roads of
to be constructed for four cities (Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt and
S
anlurfa) of Southeast Anatolia Region.
All tests were conducted following the standard testing proce-
dures stipulated in the ASTM Standard, e.g., ASTM D-422 for
mechanical analysis, ASTM D-4318 for liquid limit, and plastic lim-
it tests. The laboratory compaction tests were conducted by using
the standard proctor compaction effort in accordance with the
standard test procedures of ASTM D-698. CBR tests were con-
ducted in accordance with AASHTO T 193. The samples were com-
value at maximum dry density. The soil samples were soaked for
4 days before testing. Surcharge weights in the form of annular
discs with a mass of 2 kg were placed on the soil sample to simu-
late the weight of pavement materials overlying subgrade. A cylin-
drical plunger is made to penetrate the soil sample at a rate
specied in AASHTO T 193. Tests were performed at the centre lab-
oratory of 9th Regional Directorate of Highways Diyarbakir.
3. View of the articial neural network
Due to difculties in solutions of the complex engineering sys-
tems, in the past decade, researchers have started to study on arti-
cial neural network (ANN) inspired by the behavior of human
brain and nervous system. Each ANN model can be differently or-
ganized according to the same basic structure. There are three
main layers in ANN structure; a set of input nodes, one or more lay-
ers of hidden nodes, and a set of output nodes. Each layer basically
contains a number of neurons working as an independent process-
ing element and densely interconnected with each other. The neu-
rons using the parallel computation algorithms are simply
compiled with an adjustable connection weights, summation func-
tion and transfer function. The methodology of ANNs is based on
the learning procedure from the data set presented it from the in-
put layer and testing with other data set for the validation. A net-
work is trained by using a special learning function and learning
rule. In ANNs analyses, some function called learning functions is
used for initialization; training, adaptation and performance func-
tion. During the training process, a network is continuously up-
dated by a training function which repeatedly applies the input
888 T. Taskiran / Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892
variables to a network till a desired error criterion is obtained.
Adapt functions is employed for the simulation of a network, while
the network is updated for each time step of the input vector be-
fore continuing the simulation to the next input. Performance
functions are used to grade the network results. In this study, Gra-
dient descent with momentum and adaptive learning rate (train-
gdx), gradient descent with momentum weight and bias learning
function (learngdm) and mean square error (MSE) were used for
training function; adapt function and performance function,
respectively. In the learning stage, network initially starts by ran-
domly assigning the adjustable weights and threshold values for
each connection between the neurons in accordance with selected
ANNs model. After the weighted inputs are summed and added the
threshold values, they are passed through a differentiable non-lin-
ear function dened as a transfer function. This process is contin-
ued, until a particular input captures to their output (i.e., target)
or as far as the lowest possible error can be obtained by using an
error criterion. In other words the network training is the determi-
nation of the weights and the biases [9,10]. An ANN model can be
differently composed in terms of architecture, learning rule and
self organization. The most widely used ANNs are the feed-for-
ward, multilayer perceptions trained by back-propagation algo-
rithms based on gradient descent method (FFBP). This algorithm
can provide approximating to any continuous function from one -
nite-dimensional space to another for any desired degree of accu-
racy. The superiority of FFBP is that it sensitively assigns the initial
weights values and therefore it may yield closer results than the
each other. Also this algorithm has easier application and shorter
training duration.
4. Development of articial neural networks models for the
prediction of CBR
The potential of using ANNs for the estimation of CBR were
investigated by developing various proper ANN models. The vari-
ables which have been identied in the literature review and oth-
ers which appear to be potentially inuential to CBR value were
used for ANN prediction models. Parameters belonging to three
groups of soil index properties which reect plasticity, gradation
and compaction properties are utilized. Therefore, totally seven ba-
sic soil parameters such as liquid limit (LL), plasticity index (PI),
dry unit weight (cd), optimum water content (wopt), No: 200 sieve
passing percent (clay + silt), sand percent (S) and gravel percent (G)
were taken into consideration as input parameters for the ANN
models. The soil parameters used herein can easily be obtained
by routine laboratory tests. To obtain the best model that governs
CBR, seven different ANN models were established by proper com-
bination of input data. The developed network models and archi-
tectures used for the training are given in Table 1. For this study
21% of the original data was extracted at random and used for
the test stage. The remaining 79% of the data were used to train
the neural network. Testing data set were not used during develop-
ment of the neural network, and so they could form a good indica-
Table 1
The ANN and GEP models used for the prediction of CBR.
Model Inputs Structure Transfer function
(ANN) (ANN)
I (LL), (PI), ck, wopt, (C + S), S, G 7-4-1 logsiglogsig
II (LL), (PI), ck, wopt, (C + S), S, 6-5-1 tansigtansig
III (PI), ck, wopt, (C + S), S 5-4-1 logsiglogsig
IV (PI), ck, wopt, (C + S) 4-4-1 tansigtansig
V (PI), ck, (C + M), S 4-5-1 logsiglogsig
VI (PI), ck, (C + M) 3-4-1 logsiglogsig
VII ck, (C + M), wopt 3-5-1 logsiglogsig
tor to test the accuracy of the developed network. Therefore, data
group from 119 different tests was used to train the network and
data group which consist of 32 test results used for testing the
network.
The ANN toolbox of MATLAB computer aided Software [11] was
used to perform the necessary computations. In order to develop
the most appropriate ANN architecture for each model, the number
of neurons in the hidden layer and a number of multi layer net-
works with different transfer functions were tried to predict best
CBR values. They were, therefore, varied until the convergence
was achieved in the mean squared error. The feed-forward neural
networks which consist of multilayer perceptions trained back-
propagation algorithms were employed for this study. In Fig. 1,
the architecture of the Model I formed by using feed-forward arti-
cial neural networks with seven inputs is shown. To evaluate the
results of the developed ANN models, the coefcient of determina-
tion (R2), the mean square errors (MSE), mean (xmean) and standard
deviation (Sx) were used as statistical verication tool.
The normalized data set was used to train neural network to ob-
tain the nal weights. At the end of the analyses the network out-
puts were post processed to convert the data back into
unnormalized units. The connection weights and biases for Model
I of ANN was given in Table 2.
5. Gene expression programming (GEP)
Gene expression programming, which is an algorithm based on
genetic algorithms (GA) and genetic programming (GP) was rst
proposed by Ferreira [12]. It has several features similar to biolog-
ical evolution to evolve a computer program encoded in linear
chromosomes of xed-length. The principal objective of GEP is to
develop a mathematical function that ts a set of data presented
to GEP model. For the mathematical equation the GEP process car-
ries out the symbolic regression by means of the most of the genet-
ic operators of GA. There are some differences between GEP and
GA. GA depicts the individuals as symbolic strings of xed-length
(chromosomes), GP depicts them as non-linear entities of different
size and shapes (parse trees). Whereas in GEP the individuals is
represented as simple strings of xed-length which are subse-
quently expressed as expression trees of different size and shape
[13,14]. The primary GEP process is presented in Fig. 2. In GEP anal-
ysis, ve parameters such as the function set, terminal set, tness
function, control parameters and stop condition are used. After
encoding of the problem for the candidate solution and the tness
function is specied, an initial population of viable individuals
(chromosomes) is randomly created and then each chromosome
is converted into an expression tree corresponding to a mathemat-
(LL)
(PI)
k
wopt
CBR
C+M
S
G
Fig. 1. The architecture of feed-forward articial neural networks with seven
inputs.
 T. Taskiran / Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892 889

Table 2
Connection weights and biases for ANN Model I.

Weights input layer and hidden layer

52.36109 6.84089 14.09214 65.86439 50.35212 19.68129 15.30863
67.54092 21.60191 43.18565 16.70809 74.14464 103.84416 49.24983
1.49602 2.65625 0.82929 1.72920 2.90543 1.27760 1.32442
50.01612 2.65625 0.82929 1.72920 2.90543 1.27760 1.32442
Weights hidden layer and output layer
104.27030 1.12246 5.30735 103.51451
Biases in hidden layer
47.09824 22.00911 1.66650 50.59088
Biases in output layer
2.70634

Whereas, the terminal symbols in the tail can be solely the con-
Start
stants and the independent variables of the problem like (1, a, b, c).
Initial population creation
5.2. GEP operators
Chromosome expression as ET

ET execution In GEP, the selection, mutation, transposition, and cross-over

(recombination) are the main operators. The chromosomes are
Fitness evaluation modied to obtain better tness score for the next generation by
means of these operators.
Yes The operator rates that are specied at the beginning of the
Terminate? Stop model constructions show a certain probability of a chromosome.
In general the mutation rate is recommended to be ranging from
No 0.001 to 0.1. On the other hand the transposition operator and
Chromosome selection cross-over operator are suggested to be 0.1, 0.4, respectively [16].

Reproduction
New generation creation
Fig. 2. GEP algorithm.
ical equation. The predicted values are subsequently compared
with the actual one and the tness score for each chromosome is
computed. If the satisfactory tness score is obtained, the algo-
rithm is terminated. If it is not so, some of the chromosomes are
chosen via roulette-wheel sampling and then mutated to obtain
the new generations. This process is continued until satisfactory
tness score is obtained and then non-coding of the chromosomes
are performed for the best solution of the problem [15].
5.1. GEP elements
There are two main elements in GEP; the chromosomes and the
expression trees. The chromosome is consists of one or more genes
and it represents a mathematical equation. Two bilingual and con-
clusive languages called Karva Language (the language of the genes
and the language of the expression trees (ET)) are used for coding
any mathematical equation. This feature of the GEP is useful for the
6. GEP model development
The main purpose for development of GEP model was to gener-
ate the mathematical functions which predict CBR value. In this
study, various GEP models in which different numbers of input
variables are used were developed for the prediction of California
bearing ratio. The input parameters used for GEP models are the
same as the ANN models and also presented in Table 1. Similar
to ANN models, the total data used for GEP were arranged in a for-
mat of seven input parameters that cover liquid limit (LL), plastic-
ity index (PI), dry unit weight (cd), optimum water content (wopt),
No. 200 sieve passing percent (C + S), sand percent (S) and gravel
percent (G). In order to develop the best GEP model, the parame-
ters such as; the number of chromosomes were varied between
25 and 35, number of genes between 3 and 6, and the head size be-
tween 7 and 12. During the development of GEP models, it was ob-
served that the same GEP parameters were obtained for the best
three models and these parameters were presented in Table 3. Re-
sults have shown that Model I and Model V are two best GEP model
which have better statistical performance. As can be seen from Ta-
ble 1, Model I has seven and Model V has four input parameters
Table 3
GEP parameters obtained for the best three models.

precisely inferring of the genotype. The GEP genes composed of Chromosomes 30

two parts called the head and the tail. The head of a gene that in- Fitness function error type R2
cludes some mathematical functions, variables and constants is Number of the genes 5
Head size 10
utilized for encoding of a function. But, the tail of a gene that in-
Linking function +
cludes only variables and constants are employed as supplemen- Function set +, , , /,
p
tary terminal symbols. These symbols are used, in case the Mutation rate 0.044
terminal symbols in the head are not adequate to encode a func- One-point recombination rate 0.3
tion. Many functions can be used in the head of gene such as be ba- Two-point recombination rate 0.3
Inversion rate 0.1
sic arithmetic operators, trigonometric functions or any other
Transposition rate 0.1
mathematical or user-dened functions (+, , *, /, p, sin, cos).
890 T. Taskiran / Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892

and mathematical functions for both models are presented below. posed model gives R > 0.8, there is a strong correlation between
In order to prevent any confusion, the ne content (C + S) was de- measured and predicted values for overall the data available in
noted by F herein. the database. In addition to this, the statistical performance of
GEP Model I any model is evaluated in terms of some error criteria such as
mean squared error (MSE); mean absolute error (MAE) which is
CBR cd =PI=S F  LL  31:99  LL 11:99 signicant criteria as well as R value, since sometimes a model
31:99 sqrtLL  wopt G  PI  PI=  24:55 with high R2 value may exhibit high MSE or MAE value. Taking
these criterions into consideration, it can be expressed that the
cd cd  cd  wopt  cd =F  PI  11:30  cd
best two models of GEP are Model I and Model V while it is Model
44:14  G  F  G PI  G=18:91 I and Model VI for ANN, in terms of higher R2 and lower MSE. The
 PI=18:91 sqrtF=F 1:04  S PI  22:56 magnitudes of errors for these models appear to be in reasonable
level to use them in prediction of CBR of soils. Moreover, it can eas-
S S
ily be seen that Model I is the best model for both GEP and ANN
models in terms of all statistical indicators and the performance
GEP Model V of the model is specied in Table 5. Estimated CBR values obtained
CBR sqrtsqrtS=F  34:75 cd  PI sqrt8:28  F with Model I of ANN and GEP are graphically compared with the
measured CBR values in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively. As seen from
cd  S=cd  cd  21:49=cd cd  21:49=cd the gures, both ANN and GEP model predictions are well-agreed
2:091=cd =2:37=PI cd 2:37  PI  F S with the experimental data.
A comparison in terms of statistical performance of GEP and
S  cd 19:35  2PI  cd =23:02
ANN of Model I is believed to be useful and is also made herein.
sqrtsqrtPI=1:81  F PI  cd  1:81  cd As mentioned above, a prediction model with higher R2 and lover
 36:31 MSE indicates better agreement with actual (experimental) data.
When ANN and GEP models are compared in this respect, it can
be seen that R2 of the both models are close while MSE of GEP mod-
el is lower. This means, deviation around the regression line is
7. Results and discussion smaller for GEP model. Despite of such good aspect of GEP, it
underestimates relatively higher values of test population (approx-
The objective of this section of the paper is to examine, discuss imately for CBR values greater than 10%) as can be seen from Fig. 3.
and compare the results obtained from both ANN and GEP models. On the other hand, the statistical parameters such as; the mean
As previously mentioned, developed ANN and GEP models were (xmean), standard deviation (Sx), coefcient of variation (Cv), skew-
tested by data sets which were not employed in the training stage. ness (Csx), maximum (xmax) and minimum (xmin) reects the distri-
To evaluate how accurate the results of the developed models are, bution properties of any data set. It can be seen that, Sx, Cv, Csx and
the coefcient of determination (R2), mean square error (MSE), xmax of ANN model are better than GEP, since they are in better
mean (xmean) and standard deviation (Sx) were used as statistical agreement with the distribution parameters of experimental val-
verication tool. ues (see Table 5). Thus, if generally evaluated, while GEP of Model I
The statistical performances of both ANN and GEP models are is statistically slightly better than ANN (in terms of R2 and MSE),
summarized in Table 4. As far as Table 4 is concerned, satisfactory ANN model have better distribution properties and ANN produces
agreement between the model predictions and experimental data more reliable CBR for relatively higher values.
is observed for most of models. In Table 4, it can also be seen that Sensitivity analysis is also performed to see how much the input
the performance of each model obtained with both methods (ANN parameters are effective on output CBR parameter (see Fig. 5). As
and GEP) are similar in terms of R2 and MSE for the majority of can be seen from Fig. 5, dry unit weight are found to be the most
models. This phenomenon can be interpreted as the inputs to effective parameter on CBR and then PI, wopt, S, C + S, LL, G respec-
establish the models (given in Table 1), are selected accurately. tively. This result is in agreement with research reported by Doshi
On the other hand, in statistics, the overall error performances of et.al. [6]. However, it is known that the dry unit weight is one of
the relationship between two groups can be interpreted from coef- the signicant parameter on many engineering properties of soils
cient of correlation (R) values. According to Smith [17], if a pro- such as bearing capacity, swelling, and shrinkage characteristics.
Remembering CBR is the indirect measure of stiffness modulus
Table 4 and shear strength characteristics of soils, such impact of dry unit
Statistical performance of ANN/GEP models. weight on CBR could be considered as an expected result.
To see the performance of few correlation equations for the
Model R2 MSE xmean Sx
present soil, CBR values are calculated by means of correlation pro-
I 0.910 2.207 5.641 4.265
0.918 1.287 5.75 3.11
II 0.641 8.679 5.428 4.275
Table 5
0.882 4.36 5.231 3.394
Statistical performance of Model I.
III 0.523 29.581 6.445 7.887
0.812 4.77 5.493 3.699 ANN model GEP model

IV 0.807 4.432 5.802 4.208 Measured Predicted Measured Predicted

0.821 5.125 5.611 3.317 R 2
0.910 0.918
V 0.838 4.271 5.978 5.205 MSE 2.207 1.287
0.911 3.491 5.696 3.357 xmean 5.98 5.64 5.98 5.75
Sx 4.79 4.26 4.79 3.11
VI 0.885 2.869 5.818 4.071
Min 1.90 2.52 1.90 2.31
0.879 3.691 5.632 3.532
Max 18.00 17.71 18.00 14
VII 0.681 8.147 5.526 3.143 Csx 1.64 1.73 1.64 1.24
0.617 9.12 5.346 3.306 Cv 0.801 0.757 0.801 0.541
 T. Taskiran / Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892 891

25 3

Estimated CBRgep 2.5

20

Sensitivity
2
15
1.5

10 1

0.5
5
R2 = 0.91 0
LL PI k
G
k Wopt Clay+silt Sand Gravel
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 parameters
Actual CBR
Fig. 5. Sensitvity analysis for CBR results.

Measured GEP
20
25

Estiameted CBR values

15
CBR values

20
10
15
5
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 5 R2 = 0.74
No Test
0
Fig. 3. Comparison between estimated (by GEP) and measured values of CBR. 0 5 10 15 20 25
Actual CBR values

25 Fig. 6. Comparison between estimated by NCHRP and measured values of CBR.

20
Estimated CBR

25
15
Estimated CBR values

20
10
15

5
R2 = 0.91 10

0 5 R2 = 0.50
0 5 10 15 20 25
Actual CBR 0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Measured ANN Actual CBR values
20
Fig. 7. Comparison between estimated by Agarwal and Ghanekar [4] and measured
18 values of CBR.
16
14
CBR values

12
from the gures, both equations overestimates CBR values for the
soils used at present study. R2 value is obtained as 0.50 using Eq.
10
(2) and 0.74 by Eq. (4).
8
6
8. Summary and conclusions
4
2
The main objective of this study is to investigate the applicabil-
0
ity of two AI methods which is articial neural network (ANN) and
0 10 20 30 40
gene expression programming (GEP) for prediction of California
No Test
bearing ratio. To achieve this, CBR tests results of ne grained soils,
Fig. 4. Comparison between estimated (by ANN) and measured values of CBR. belonging to A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7 soil groups were provided from 9.
Regional Directorate of Highways Diyarbakir (Southeast Anatolia
Region). Seven ANN and GEP models which have different input
posed by the Eq. (2) (Agarwal and Ghanekar [4]) and Eq. (4) parameters were trained to establish the best interrelationship be-
(NCHRP). The results are presented in Figs. 6 and 7. As can be seen tween basic soil properties and the parameter CBR. Performances
892 T. Taskiran / Advances in Engineering Software 41 (2010) 886892
of the models were examined in terms of some statistical verica-
tion criteria. The best results were produced for both GEP and ANN
of Model I which have seven input parameters.
Consequently, when the results are evaluated, it can be con-
cluded that the both ANN and GEP are found to be able to learn
the relation between the CBR and basic soil properties and can
be used for the prediction of CBR values of soils. Additionally, sen-
sitivity analysis has shown that dry unit weight is the most effec-
tive parameter on CBR and then PI, wopt, S, C + S, LL and G
respectively. Considering the CBR soil tests to be fairly difcult,
time consuming and expensive, it can be emphasized that the
use of ANN and GEP models for estimating CBR, in terms of soil
parameters, could be helpful tool to be used for preliminary iden-
tication of material or/and a base of judgment for the validity of
the CBR values.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank to M. Ali Sabaz who is the head of labora-
tory branch of 9th Regional Directorate of Highways Diyarbakir,
especially due to the valuable contribution and supports through-
out this article work.
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