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Estimation of Liquid and Plastic Limit using Artificial Neural Network Models

Yeetendra Kumar
Research Scholar, Civil Engg. Deptt, MNNIT, Allahabad –211004, E-mail: yeetendra@rediffmail.com
Vijay Kumar
M.Tech Student, Civil Engg. Deptt, MNNIT, Allahabad –211004, E-mail: vijay03c34@gmail.com
K. Venkatesh
Asstt. Professor, Civil Engg. Deptt, MNNIT, Allahabad –211004, E-mail: venkatesh@mnnit.ac.in

ABSTRACT: The physical properties of clays are considerably influenced by the amount of water present in them. The
boundary water content at which the soil undergoes a change from one state to another is referred as consistency limits.
In practice the property of consistency is associated only with fine grained soils especially clays. The present study is
concentrated on estimation of liquid limit and plastic limit taking particle size distribution, SPT-N Value, natural
moisture content, specific gravity and dry density as independent variable using artificial neural network modeling
technique. The objective of this study is to investigate the practicability of using artificial neural network to model the
complex relationship between basic soil parameters with consistency limits. ANN models with varying input parameter
were used to investigate the best possible architecture to predict liquid limit and plastic limit. The analysis showed that
the results obtained from ANN models are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results and ANN models may
be used to predict limits of the soil.

INTRODUCTION prowess and are tedious. To overcome this difficulty

In 1911, the Swedish soil scientist Albert Atterberg (1846- artificial neural network (ANN) modeling technique is
1916) developed a series of test to evaluate the proposed through this paper.
relationship between moisture content and soil
consistency. Then, in the 1930s, Karl Terzaghi and Arthur NEURAL NETWORK MODELING &
Casagranade adopted these tests for civil engineering APPLICABILITY IN GEOTECHNICAL
purposes, and they soon became a routine part of ENGINEERING
geotechnical engineering. This series includes three Artificial neural networks can be most adequately
separate tests; the liquid limit test, the plastic limit test, characterized as ‘computational models’ with particular
and the shrinkage limit test. Together they are known as properties such as the ability to adapt or learn, to
the Atterberg limit tests (Coduto 2007). generalize or to cluster or organize data and which
operation is based on parallel processing. An artificial
Liquid limit (WL) is the water content at which soil exhibit network consists of a pool of simple processing units
an arbitrarily fixed small amount of shear strength and it is which communicate by sending signals to each other over
the water content that presents the boundary between the a large number of weighted connections (Ben Krose &
liquid state and the plastic state of soil. Soil in the plastic Patrick van der Smagt 1996). A typical processing unit is
state has water content which enables the soil to behave shown below: Figure 1.
like a plastic material, that is, the soil can be moulded, or
shaped, or distorted without it being ruptured. At the water
content corresponding to plastic limit (WP), a soil sample
just begins to rupture or crumble when tried to mould it
into a arbitrarily fixed shape. The range of water content in
which the soil behaves like a plastic material, that is, W L –
WP is known as the plasticity index, P.I., of the soil
(Gulathi & Dutta 2008). Plasticity index and liquid limit
are used primarily in developing plasticity chart for the
classification of soil (USCS and IS: 1498-1970) and
further these classifications are used to check the
suitability of soil for different civil engineering
construction purposes. Fig.1 The basic components of an artificial neural
network. The propagation rule used here is the standard
Currently, several methods exist to measure liquid and
weighted summation
plastic limit of soil. Existing interpretation methods fall
generally under experimental methods, for determination
Network of several parallel processing units combindly
of liquid limit (Through liquid limit device, one-point
referred as artificial neural network. There are different
method and static cone penetration method IS: 2720 -part
types of neural network and these networks differ in the
V) and plastic limit (IS: 2720 part V). These methods need
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architecture, rules of learning and self organization (kurup through 75 and 2 micron IS sieve were selected one of the
et al 2002). input parameter. Likewise SPT-N value, natural moisture
content (w), specific gravity (G s) and dry density (ρd)may
Such neural networks have been widely used in be the factors which can influence consistency of soil, that
geotechnical engineering for modeling the soil and rock is the reason artificial neural network modeling used in
properties. In the past few years ANN modeling technique this study took aforementioned six independent variable as
got its way in swell pressure and soil suction behavior input vectors while as liquid limit (LL) and plastic limit
(Yusuf Erzin 2007), settlement prediction (Shahin et al (PL) as target vector. Five different models, in which the
2005) error prediction in triaxial apparatus (Dihoru et al. number of input variable changed from two to six as
2005), damage classification of bridges based on texture shown in table 1, were employed in the analysis. The
analysis (Kabir et al. 2008), stress strain behavior of sandy output of the models was liquid limit and plastic limit.
soils (Banimahd et al. 2005), and effective stress
parameter estimation (Kayadelen 2008) etc. Table 1. Network architecture with combination of input
SELECTION AND CONFIGURATIONS OF ANN S.No Inputs Structure Best
MODELS . structure
The feed-forward neural network that consists of 1 SPT-N , w 2-H1-2, 2-7- 9-2
multilayer perceptrons trained back-propagation 2-H1- H2-2,
algorithms were employed for this study. In the ANN 2 SPT-N , w, Gs 3-H1-2, 3-10- 8-2
analysis, dataset were generally normalized to obtain 3-H1- H2-2,
better convergence. Thus, the data set used in this study
3 SPT-N , w, Gs,ρd 4-H1-2, 4-12- 9-2
was scaled between 0 to 1 using the eq. (1) (Rafiq et al.
4-H1- H2-2,
2001; Kayadelen 2007; Gunadym 2009).
4 SPT-N , w, Gs, ρd , 5-H1-2, 5-14- 10-2
% passing 75 5-H1- H2-2,
micron
(1) 5 SPT-N , w, Gs, ρd , 6-H1-2, 6-14- 11-2
% passing 75 and 6-H1- H2-2,
2 micron
Range of normalization depends upon transformation Where H1 and H2 represents hidden layer 1 and 2
function. In the end of analysis, the network outputs were respectively (no. of neurons in H1 and H2 varies from 2 to
post processed to convert the data back into de-normalized 15)
units. In feed-forward neural networks, the data presented
to the input layer are propagated to the next layer by the TRAINING, TESTING AND VALIDATION PHASES
interconnections between the neurons. Simple processing Sixty percent of the total data were used for training phase
is performed on the data by the neurons of the receiving and remaining 40 percent data was used for testing and
layer prior to its being propagated on to the next layer. validation. training process was repeated for epochs 500,
This procedure is repeated until the transformed data reach 1000, 1500, 2000, 5000, 6000, 7000, 8000, 9000, 10000,
the output layer, completing the processing for that data 15000, 18000, 20000, 24000, and 25000 till the following
input. The ANN toolbox of MATLAB 7.4 computer added
conditions reached
software was used to perform the necessary computation
in which LR and momentum were kept constant whereas
(i) The minimum value of MSE reached
connection weights were kept adjustable automatically for
through
all the models. Models with single and double hidden
repeated training.
layer of varying numbers of neurons (2 to 15) were used in
(ii) The MSE of the training set is reached to
the analysis.
0.002
(iii)MSE started increasing after increasing epochs
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS AND ARCHITECTURE (Noorzaei et al. 2007).
OF ANN MODELS
In practice the property of consistency is associated only RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
with fine grained soils especially clays. Some Next step after training process is the selection of best
classification systems draw the line between silt and clays networks architecture. Based on logical iteration, MSE and
based on particle size as determined from hydrometer test, regression plots, best architecture were defined for each
typically at 0.001 to 0.005 mm. Although such system can input combination as shown in table no 1. After selection
be useful, they can also be misleading because the biggest of best networks architecture, some datasets were used
difference between silt and clay is not their particle sizes, again to simulate the same network to check the
but their chemical structures (Coduto 2007). Keeping performance of best five networks for each input
above criterion in mind percentage of particle passing combination and to compare the predicted output with the
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actual output. Out of five, MSE plot of network 5-14-10-2 as shown in table no. 1, gave regression 0.686, 0.727,
is shown below: Figure 7. Comparison, based on graph 0.814, 0.857, & 0.832 for LL and regression 0.703, 0.740,
between actual and predicted value for the networks 1 to 5 0.836, 0.856 & 0.823 for PL (Figs 2a-6b)

Fig. 2a Comparison between actual and predicetd value of Fig. 3b Comparison between actual and predicetd value of
LL by model 2-7-9-2 PL by model 3-10-8-2

Fig. 4a Comparison between actual and predicetd value of

Fig. 2b Compparison between actual and predicetd value LL by model 4-12-9-2
of PL by model 2-7-9-2

Fig. 4b Comparison between actual and predicetd value of

Fig. 3a Comparison between actual and predicetd value of LL by model 4-12-9-2
LL by model 3-10-8-2

Fig. 5a Comparison between actual and predicetd value of
LL by model 5-14-10-2
Fig. 5b Comparison between actual and predicetd value of
PL by model 5-14-10-2
Fig. 6a Comparison between actual and predicetd value of
LL by model 6-14-11-2
Fig. 6b Comparison between actual and predicetd value of
PL by model 6-14-11-2
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Fig. 7 MSE plot for network5-14-10-2
CONCLUSIONS
It may be concluded that the network containing one
hidden layer always underperformed in comparison to
network containing two hidden layer. Network 2-7- 9-2
gave the coefficient of regression 0.686 for LL and 0.703
for PL while as network 5-14- 10-2 gave the coefficient of
regression 0.857 for LL and 0.856 for PL, in between
these, network 3-10- 8-2 and 4-12- 9-2 gave the
intermediate values of coefficient of regression that is the
clear indication of betterment of network by increasing the
input from 2 to 5.
Network 6-14-11-2 including six input vector gave
relatively low value of R2 = 0.832 for LL and R 2 = 0.823
for PL in comparison to network 5-14- 10-2 this may be
due to redundancy of data. On the basis of aforesaid
findings it may be concluded that network 5-14- 10-2
proved to be the optimal network for predicting LL and
PL.
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