Geotec Hanoi 2011 October ISBN 978-604-82-000-8

An Approach for USCS Identical Classification of Soil using

Artificial Neural Network Technique

Yeetendra Kumar
Research Scholar, Civil Engg. Deptt, MNNIT, Allahabad –211004, E-mail: yeetendra@rediffmail.com

Vijay Kumar
Research Scholar, 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

Key words: Unified soil classification system, artificial neural network, percentage of particle sizes, liquid limit, plastic
limit, plasticity index

ABSTRACT: Percentage of particle sizes, liquid limit, plastic limit and plasticity index are some of the basic
information of soil needed to classify it in Unified Soil Classification System (USCS). Though aforementioned
properties are sufficient for engineering classification of soil but we may include other properties also which may cause
behavioral alteration in a specific soil. Present study is an approach of applying Artificial Neural Network (ANN)
modeling technique by embracing some physical properties indicator of in-situ state of soil and some index properties
of soil to predict specific class. Though it is site specific phenomenon but efforts were made to include both classes
that are coarse and find grained soils in the study. The results obtained from ANN models found satisfactory in
agreement with the Unified Soil Classification System and may be used to predict specific soil class. Further it is
suggested that incorporating other soft computing tools in connection with ANN may prove far better.

1. INTRODUCTION classification of soil. Though ANN have been

The Unified Soil classification System (ASTM E 11-
1961) provides the basis, for using the soil in engineering
exercises like embankments, foundations and canal
sections etc. This system was first developed in year
1940 by Casagranade and later was accepted by almost
all the countries as the common criterion for engineering
division of soil. Classification of soil in USCS or any
other system needed a series of laboratory experiments
subsequently placement of results in respective category
to determine its specific class. The sequential
experiments needed for this purpose are sieve analysis
(IS: 460-1962), hydrometer analysis, liquid limit test (IS:
9259-1979) and plastic limit test.
Almost all available soil classification software uses
the results from abovementioned tests but hardly any
have as a feature the prediction tool. Keeping the above
view in mind present work is carried out to examine the
feasibility of artificial neural network technique for
successfully applied in the field of soil class
determination (cal 1995 & Goktepe 2010 etc) and most
of them used properties found through earlier mentioned
tests using three or four variables however in this paper
few other properties like particle sizes were included to
predict soil class. Objective of doing so is to make an
attempt of designating both soil classes (coarse & fine
class) together.
In recent years ANN found its way through other
fields of soil engineering also some of them are;
reliability analysis of structures (Goh and Kulhawy
2003); settlement prediction (Shahin et al 2005, Kim et al
2001); soil structure interaction (wan and Yen 2006);
slope stability estimation (Shangguan 2009) and ground
failures (Baziar and Ghorbani 2005); shear developments
(Sezer 2011) etc.
2. OVERVIEW OF UNIFIED SOIL
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

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This system divides the soil into two main categories 3.2 Back-Propagation Neural networks
coarse grained and fine grained soil and their behavior is We may understand the BP system by the following
controlled by grain size distribution and plasticity diagram.
characteristics. There are in all 15 groups of soils in dj(n)
which 8 (GW;GP;GM;GC;SW;SP; SM and SC) belongs
to coarse grained soil and 6 (ML;CL;OL;MH; CH and
OH) and remaining one (Pt) is categorized as peat. Based Y 0= +1
on cumulative mass retained on 0.075 mm sieve (out of wj0(n)= bj(n)
coarse fraction) coarse grained soil is again divided into
gravel and sands. Further narrow downing of the gravel ej(n)
v j(n) φ( ) Yj(n) -1
and sand is done on the basis of boundary conditions of wji(n)
fines i, e, if fraction passing No. 200 sieve < 5% group yi(n)
symbol may be GW:GP:SW:SP, if >12% group symbol
may be GM:GC:SM:SC, if 12% ≤ fraction passing No.
200 sieve ≥ 5%use of dual symbol required. Other than
above mentioned rules use of plasticity chart devised by
Casagrande (1948), coefficient of uniformity C u,
coefficient of curvature Cc and plasticity index Ip is
recommended.
Contrary to coarse grained soils, fine grained soils are
divided solely by the plasticity chart itself and further Figure 1 Signal flow graph of neuron j.
subdivision are made on the basis of plasticity
characteristics. The A – line in the plasticity chart The error signal ej(n) of neuron j at iteration n may be
possessing the equation calculated by
is generally used for separating the
clay from silt and organic soils from inorganic soils.
(1)
3. ARTIFICILIAL NEURAL NETWORK
The error energy of neuron j may be ½ e j2 (n). Thus total
Artificial neural networks can be most adequately error energy for all neurons in the output layer
characterized as ‘computational models’ with particular
properties such as the ability to adapt or learn, to
ξ
generalize or to cluster or organize data and in which
(2)
operation is based on parallel processing. Task of
generalization is achieved by training and testing through
Where set C includes all the neurons in the output layer
division of input and target vectors into two datasets.
of the network. Let N denote the total number of patterns
contained in the training set. The average squared error
3.1 Categories of Neural Network
energy is obtained by summing 𝛏 (n) over all n and then
Two types of networks are commonly used for function normalizing with respect to the size N
approximation. First is a back-propagation network and
second is a radial basis neural network. The back-
propagation algorithm for the design of multilayer (3)
perceptron may be viewed as the application of recursive
technique known in statics as stochastic approximation The objective of learning process is to adjust the free
wherein radial basis neural networks is like curve fitting parameters (like synaptic weights and bias levels) to
(approximation) problem in a high dimensional space minimize 𝛏av.
(Haykin 2006). In ongoing literature the discussion is
limited to BP network as it is used for model 4. STRATEGY FOR DATA & NETWORK
development. SELECTION

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As discussed in previous articles, this study is based on

determination of soil class through two different conduct;
first is by conventional USCS system second is by ANN
method using the same soil information needed to
classify it through USCS. For this purpose few selected
parameters from bore-log chart is collected from a
specific site. Potential geotechnical parameters
considered were percentage of particle finer than 2 mm
Dx= 2mm; 0.075mm Dy = 0.075 mm; and 0.002 mm Dz=
0.002 mm, liquid limit wL, plastic limit wp and plasticity
index IP. It is customary to mention that all above said
parameters were function of depth of bore holes from
which samples were collected.
A total of 107 data of soil collected from site
contained four types of soil namely silty sand (SM),
inorganic silt (ML), inorganic clay (this class is added in
USCS due to intermediate plasticity between CL & CH)
of medium plasticity (CI) and inorganic clay of low to
medium plasticity (CL), this is how two category (SM &
ML) from coarse soil and two other (CI & CL) from fine
soil covers both class of soil simultaneously.
(5)
At the end of analysis, the network outputs were post
processed to convert the data back into de-normalized
units. The ANN toolbox in MATLAB 7.10 (R2010a)
computer added software was used to perform the
necessary computation in which LR and momentum were
kept constant whereas connection weights were kept
adjustable automatically for all the models.
4.2 Selection of network architecture
The basic feed forward models architecture with single
hidden layer of varying numbers of neurons (2 to 18)
were used in the analysis. Fig.2 describes the way
network were treated from given set of input and target
parameters.

4.1 Network characteristics Dx

The feed-forward neural network with back-propagation

learning algorithms (as discussed above) was employed DY
for all kind of operations. In back propagation learning N1
f

algorithm the training (modification of synaptic weight) yk1

f

is carried out through the minimization of the defined

error function using the gradient descent approach (Chua Dz N2
f

yk2
f

& Goh 2003). It is required that the activation function

employed in network is differentiable because the weight
update is dependent variable and relies on the gradient of yk3
f

error E (Rajshekhran & pai 2010). The weight update is wL

defined as yk
f

N3
f

(4)
Where ∆w is weight update; 𝜕E/𝜕w represents the error
gradient, and η is the learning rate which determines the
size of weight adjustment.
There are many ways to improve the rate of
convergence; first is by adjusting coefficient of learning
rate η to an optimal value; second is by adding a
momentum term in the aforementioned error gradient;
and third is by normalizing dataset using following
equation (Rafiq et al. 2001; Kayadelen 2007; Gunadym
2009).
wP
Ip
Figure 2 Neural network with 9 x n x 1 architecture
The first layer presents inputs bring in to the network,
second layer namely hidden layer shows neurons in
processing ( in this case varying between 2 to 18 ),
connecting links in between first and second layer are
synaptic weights with adaptable nature and the last layer
presents output that is four dimensional nature in this
case and discussed in next article. Networks were trained
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for varying number of iterations till the minimum value vectors. Though bore hole depth up to 10 meters was
of MSE reached. considered for analysis but due to data from a single site
were adopted into the models as shown in fig. 2, there
5. DEMARCATION OF SOIL CLASS found less heterogeneity in soil showing slight variations
into the soil parameters and finally giving better results
ANN is designed to work within certain intervals of input as some of them are summarized in Table 3 below.
and output depending on transformation function. To The architecture 6-9-4 yielded comparatively better
meet this criterion soil class in USCS system is allotted results, MSE error from this models was 0.00379,
certain numbers or coded taking percentage of fine showing better performance.
contents in each soil class and plasticity characteristics as
the basis for demarcation. From the study of the bore - Table 3 ANN based results of some soil samples.
log chart, standard pattern of the percentage of particle of Dx Dy Dz wL wP IP Soil
different sizes, Atterberg limit and plasticity value were class
marked and designated with some values as shown in 87 45 1.3 0 0 0 SM
Table 1. 86 47 2.5 0 0 0 SM
100 80 7 26 19 7 CL
94 74 3.8 0 0 0 ML
Table 1 Demarcation of soil class
99 94 15 36 19 17 CI
SM ML CL CI
91 68 3.3 0 0 0 ML
Dx 85 90 95 100 98 85 6.8 32 20 12 CL
Dy 50 70 85 90 89 85 8.1 30 21 9 CL
Dz 1.5 3.5 10 17 96 79 13 36 18 18 CI
wL 0 0 27 37 93 72 3.2 0 0 0 ML
wP 0 0 17 21
IP 0 0 10 15 7. CONCLUSIONS

As shown in Table 1 above four kind of soil that are silty The strategy adopted for soil class designation found
sand (SM), inorganic silt (ML), inorganic clay of satisfactory though some adjustments were made at early
medium plasticity (CI) and inorganic clay of low to stages like, dissimilar input vectors were removed at
medium plasticity (CL)were used as learning objects for beginning itself and some of abrupt results were ignored.
the networks, and the input vectors as shown in fig. 2 This is because ANN works with the numbers not with
were used for training. To separate the output signal from the ranges or partitioned data. Use of computational
each other, the outputs of the four soil class were defined methods that works well with predefined ranges of input
as shown in Table 2. and target parameters (like fuzzy logic and
neurozzyfuzzy technique) may yield better results
Table 2 Learning paradigm without any compromise at early stages.
Dx Dy Dz wL wP IP Soil Four dimensional
class output 8. REFETRENCES
85 50 1.5 0 0 0 SM 0.9 0.1 0.1 0.1
90 70 3.5 0 0 0 ML 0.1 0.9 0.1 0.1 Baziar, M.H. &Ghorbani.A. (2005). Evaluation of lateral
95 85 10 27 17 10 CL 0.1 0.1 0.9 0.1 spreading using artificial neural networks. Soil
100 90 17 37 21 15 CI 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.9
Dynamics and earthquake engineering. 25: 1-9.
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Cal, Y. (1995). Soil classification by neural
network.Advances in Engineering Software. 22: 95-97.
The results were interpreted on the basis of four Chua, C.G. and Goh, A.T.C. (2003). A hybrid Bayesian
dimensional outputs instead of single value, for example back-propagation neural network approach to
for any output value 0.0256, 0.854, 0.139 & 0.265 the multivariate modeling. Int. Jl. Numer.
maximum value is in set two that is 0.854 and since this Anal.Meth.Geomech., John Wiley & sons, 27, 651-
output matches with four dimensional output pattern of 667.
inorganic silt (ML) that is 0.1, 0.9, 0.1 & 0.1 so the same
grade of soil will be preferred for corresponding input

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prediction.Can. Geotech. J., 42: 110-120.
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