Application of Genetic Algorithms with Hill Climbing Procedure to a Constitutive Model for Hard Soils and Soft Rocks

Abstract

For engineering applications, the complex behaviour of hard soils / soft rocks can be modelled using advanced constitutive models, although they require a great number of parameters. The application of Genetic Algorithms with a local search technique has proven to be a useful tool to be used in their determination. A constitutive model for hard soil / soft rocks was used to fit the experimental results measured in tests performed in marl specimen. This model was implemented in the explicit finite difference code FLAC and its calibration was done using a Genetic Algorithm with Hill Climbing procedure implemented in MATLAB. The use of the two programs with complete distinct objectives (MATLAB to the fitting process and FLAC to the numerical calculations) provides great flexibility to the implementation of any constitutive model to reproduce the results from experimental tests.