Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-018-0643-1

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A swarm intelligence-based machine learning approach for predicting

soil shear strength for road construction: a case study at Trung Luong
National Expressway Project (Vietnam)
Dieu Tien Bui1,2 · Nhat‑Duc Hoang3 · Viet‑Ha Nhu4

Received: 2 July 2018 / Accepted: 11 September 2018 / Published online: 15 September 2018
© Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Determining the shear strength of soil is an important task in the design phase of construction project. This study puts for-
ward an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to estimate this parameter of soil. The proposed approach is a hybrid AI model
that integrates the least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and the cuckoo search optimization (CSO). A dataset of
332 soil samples collected from the Trung Luong National Expressway Project in Viet Nam have been used for construct-
ing and validating the AI model. The sample depth, sand percentage, loam percentage, clay percentage, moisture content,
wet density of soil, specific gravity, liquid limit, plastic limit, plastic index, and liquid index are used as input variables to
predict the output variable of shear strength. In the hybrid AI framework, LSSVM is employed to generalize the functional
mapping that estimates the shear strength from the information provided by the aforementioned input variables. Since the
model establishment of LSSVM requires a proper setting of the regularization and the kernel function parameters, the CSO
algorithm is utilized to automatically determine these parameters. Experimental results show that the prediction accuracy
of the hybrid method of LSSVM and CSO (RMSE = 0.082, MAPE = 14.841, and R2 = 0.885) is better than those of the
benchmark approaches including the standard LSSVM, the artificial neural network, and the regression tree. Therefore, the
proposed method is a promising alternative for assisting construction engineers in the task of soil shear strength estimation.

Keywords Soil · Shear strength · Expressway · Hybrid artificial intelligence · Optimization · Data-driven method

1 Introduction
Shear strength is defined as the capability of soils to with-
stand internal movement or slippage when subjected to an
imposed load. This property of soil is a crucial factor which
is often employed in the design phase of many large-scale
infrastructure projects including highway, pavements, earth
* Dieu Tien Bui
buitiendieu@tdt.edu.vn
1
Geographic Information Science Research Group, Ton Duc
Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2
Faculty of Environment and Labour Safety, Ton Duc Thang
University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
3
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Institute of Research
and Development, Duy Tan University, P809‑03 Quang
Trung, Da Nang 550000, Vietnam
4 highly nonlinear. Conventional formula-based approaches
Department of Geological‑Geotech Engineering, Hanoi
University of Mining and Geology, , No. 18 Pho Vien, Duc
Thang, Bac Tu Liem, Hanoi, Vietnam
dams, retaining walls, and high-rise buildings [1]. The pro-
cess to obtain the soil shear strength in laboratory is not
only time-consuming but also costly [2]. These are due to
the instrument handling problems and the meticulous proce-
dures needed to guarantee reliable measurement outcomes.
Because of these reasons, many studies have been dedi-
cated in establishing alternative ways to obtain the shear
strength of soils including traditional formula-based meth-
ods [3] and advanced data-driven methods [4]. Although the
formula-based methods can explicitly express the functional
relationship between the shear strength and its conditional
variables, the modeling accuracy of these traditional meth-
ods is limited. The first reason is that the soil shear strength
is affected by many factors including the soil density, plastic
index, liquid limit, moisture content, and clay content [5].
The second is that the functional relationship between the
shear strength of soils and those influencing factors can be
are restricted in both nonlinear and multivariate modeling;

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they therefore cannot produce predictive results with satis-
factory accuracy [6].
For these motivations, various scholars have recently
resorted to artificial intelligence (AI) as advanced data anal-
ysis tools to construct soil shear strength prediction models.
AI-based models are excellent in nonlinear modeling and are
capable of taking into account many input variables which
determine the value of soil shear strength. The AI models
are also flexible; they can adjust their model structures adap-
tively according to the changes in the collected geotechnical
data [7–11].
Kanungo et al. [12] employed artificial neural network
(ANN) and regression tree (RT) to estimate unsaturated soil
shear strength parameters including cohesion and angle of
internal friction. The percentages of gravel, sand, silt, clay,
dry density, and plasticity index are employed as input infor-
mation. This study found that ANN performed better than
RT. In another study, Kiran et al. [13] applied Probabilistic
Neural Network to predict the shear strength parameters of
soil. A model based on functional network used for esti-
mating the residual strength of clay has been proposed by
Khan et al. [14]. Hashemi Jokar, Mirasi [6] relied on adap-
tive neuro-fuzzy inference system for modeling unsaturated
soils shear strength. Pham et al. [4] recently utilized the
neuro-fuzzy inference models, Support Vector Regression,
and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to predict the shear
strength of soft soils.
In general, based on the recent literature, the common
finding is that AI methods are highly suitable for prediction
of the soil shear strength. In addition, since the problem of
interest is complicated, other advanced AI models should be
investigated to identify better estimation models. The least
squares support vector machine (LSSVM) is a capable tool
for nonlinear and multivariate modeling. This AI approach
has been applied successfully in geotechnical and geological
engineering fields [15–21]. Nevertheless, none of the previ-
ous studies have employed LSSVM to predict shear strength
of soils. Therefore, the current study is an attempt to fill this
gap in the literature.
Moreover, the model establishment of LSSVM requires
appropriate setting of its hyperparameters including the
regularization and the kernel function parameters. These
two parameters strongly affect the outcome of the learning
phase and therefore determine the predictive capability of
the LSSVM-based soil shear strength estimation model.
Specifying the regularization and the kernel function param-
eters is not a trivial task because they should be searched
in continuous domains [22]. Therefore, there is an infinite
number of parameter sets.
Since the problem of parameter tuning of machine
learning models can be formulated as optimization prob-
lems, various researchers have incorporated metaheuristic
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Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965
algorithms and machine learning models. Mohammad
Emami et al. [23] relied on the metaheuristic algorithms
of teaching–learning-based optimization, imperialist com-
petitive, and artificial bee colony algorithms for estimating
shear-wave velocity of sandstone. Prayogo, Susanto [16]
combined symbiotic organisms search and least squares
support vector machine to enhance the predictive accu-
racy of models used for modeling the friction capacity of
driven piles in cohesive soil. Particle swarm optimization
and genetic algorithm have been utilized in [4] to optimize
the fuzzy neural networks employed for forecasting the
shear strength of soft soil. A model that incorporates sup-
port vector machine and an improved firefly algorithm has
been proposed in [24] for predicting subbase soil modu-
lus. Previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy of
metaheuristic algorithms in modeling complex phenomena
in geotechnical engineering.
Proposed in [25], cuckoo search optimization (CSO)
is a novel and capable metaheuristic method which per-
formance can surpass those of Particle Swarm Optimi-
zation and Genetic Algorithm. This algorithm relies on
the Lévy flights mechanism which mimics the foraging
path of an animal to explore the search space [26]. Due
to such property, CSO has good explorative power and
is capable of escaping from local minima. Good perfor-
mances of CSO in complex optimization problems have
been widely reported in the literature [27–29]. Therefore,
this algorithm has increasingly attracted the interest of
various researchers [30–32]. Nevertheless, the application
of CSO in soil shear strength estimation has not yet been
investigated. Therefore, this study applies metaheuristic
as a method to optimize the performance of the LSSVM
model with respect to its hyperparameter selection.
The LSSVM and CSO methods are combined to con-
struct an integrated AI model for soil shear strength pre-
diction. To train and verify the hybrid AI approach, this
study has collected 332 samples of soil with the testing
results of shear strength. The data were recorded during
the design and construction phases of the Trung Luong
national expressway project in Viet Nam. In total, eleven
factors including sample depth, sand percentage, loam per-
centage, clay percentage, moisture content, wet density
of soil, specific gravity, liquid limit, plastic limit, plastic
index, liquid index are employed as input information.
The subsequent part of the study is organized as fol-
lows: The second section reviews the mathematical back-
ground of the employed AI algorithms including LSSVM
and CSO. The third section presents the collected dataset,
followed by the description of the hybrid AI model used
for soil shear strength prediction. The fifth section reports
the experimental results, followed by some concluding
remarks in the final section.
Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965 957

2 Mathematical background of the artificial To find the solution of the aforementioned constrained opti-
intelligence algorithms mization problem, the Lagrangian is formulated as follows:

2.1 Least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) ∑

N
L(w, b, e;𝛼) = Jp (w, e) − 𝛼k {wT 𝜙(xk ) + b + ek − yk },
k=1
LSSVM, proposed by Suykens et al. [33], is an advanced (2)
artificial intelligence (AI) approach which is established by where 𝛼k denotes the Lagrange multipliers.
the principal of structural risk minimization. The learning The Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions for optimality are
phase of LSSVM is fast since this phase only requires solv- employed by differentiating the Lagrangian function L(w,b,e,α)
ing a set of linear equations. To construct the prediction with the variables in the following manner:
model, a dataset of soil shear strength records is prepared
in the following form: D = {xk , yk }, k = 1, 2, … , N, where ⎧ 𝜕L �N
⎪ =0→w= 𝛼k 𝜙(xk )
k denotes the kth data sample and N is the total number of ⎪ 𝜕w k=1
data samples. ⎪
It is noted that x k is a vector of eleven elements; ⎪ 𝜕L �N
⎪ =0→ 𝛼k = 0
xk1 , xk2 , xk3 , xk4 , xk5 , … , xk11 denotes the set of shear strength ⎨ 𝜕b k=1 (3)
conditional factors. In addition, yk represents the shear ⎪ 𝜕L
strength of the kth soil sample. The objective of the LSSVM ⎪ = 0 → 𝛼k = 𝛾ek , k = 1, … , N
⎪ 𝜕ek
learning phase is to construct a mapping function y(x) that ⎪ 𝜕L
estimates the response variable of soil shear strength based ⎪ = 0 → wT 𝜙(xk ) + b + ek − yk = 0 k = 1, … N.
⎩ 𝜕𝛼k
on a collected set of influencing variables x. The influencing
variable x contains the information of the soil sample needed
for strength prediction. Because the mapping function y(x)
is possibly nonlinear, LSSVM deals with data nonlinearity After the above linear system is solved, the final LSSVM
by mapping the data from the original input space to a high model used for function approximation is demonstrated com-
dimensional feature space; this data mapping is achievable pactly as follows:
through a mapping function 𝜙(x) [34]. Thus, linear regres-
sion analysis can be feasibly done in such high-dimensional ∑
N

feature space. The concept of LSSVM is demonstrated in

y(x) = 𝛼k K(xk , xl ) + b, (4)
k=1
Fig. 1.
To establish a LSSVM model, it is necessary to solve the where αk and b denote the solution to the linear system. k
following optimization problem [33]: and N represent the index and the total number of data sam-
ples in the training set. xk and xl are an input pattern in the
1∑ 2
N
1 T training and testing set, respectively. K(.) denotes the kernel
Minimize Jp (w, e) = w w+𝛾 e. (1)
2 2 k=1 k function which performs data mapping. The Radial Basis
Function (RBF) kernel is widely utilized [35–37]; therefore,
Subjected to yk = wT 𝜙(xk ) + b + ek , k = 1, … , N . it is selected for this work. Its functional form is described
where ek ∈ R is the kth error variable; 𝛾 > 0 denotes a as follows:
regularization constant. w and b are the LSSVM model’s ( )
parameters which specify the hyperplane used for function ‖x − x ‖2
‖ k l‖
approximation. 𝜙(xk ) represents a mapping function.
K(xk , xl ) = exp − , (5)
2𝜎 2

Fig. 1  The LSSVM model for

estimating soil shear strength

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958
where 𝜎 represents the radial basis kernel function parameter.
2.2 Cuckoo search optimization (CSO)
CSO [25] is a recently developed metaheuristic algorithm
which is inspired by the brood parasitism of cuckoo spe-
cies. Equipped with Levy flights random walks, CSO is an
effective swarm intelligence-based algorithm for solving for
global optimization in continuous space [26]. Successful
applications of this metaheuristic in tacking complex opti-
mization problems have been observed in various engineer-
ing fields [27, 38–40].
In the CSO operation, a possible solution for the opti-
mization problem at hand is represented by an egg. Each
individual of cuckoo can lay one egg. Therefore, a cuckoo
is associated with a solution in the search space. During
the iterative process of exploiting and exploring the search
space, a new and potentially better solution, or cuckoos, is
identified and replace an inferior solution [38].
The CSO algorithm keeps a balance between the explora-
tion and exploitation of the search space using both global
and local random walks. The global random walk relied on
Levy flights is employed to modify the position of a current
solution; its mathematical equation is shown as follows:
g+1
xi
g
= xi + 𝛼 ⋅ Levy, (6)
where 𝛼 > 0 is the step length. Levy is a random number
drawn from the Levy distribution. g denotes the number of
generations.
Fig. 2  Location of the Trung
Luong National Expressway
Project
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Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965
In addition, the local random walk used in CSO aims
at exploring the vicinity of a current solution xi in the gth
g
generation via the following equation:
( ) ( g )
g+1 g
xi = xi + 𝛼 ⋅ s ⊗ H pa − 𝜀 ⊗ xj − xk ,
g
(7)
where xj and xk denote the two randomly selection solu-
g g
tions, respectively; H(.) is a Heaviside step function;
𝜀 ∈ [0, 1] denotes a uniform-distribution random number; s
represents the step length parameter; ⊗ is the dot product of
two vectors; pa denotes the probability of local random walk
[25].
3 Study area and data
The study area (Fig. 2) is the Trung Luong National Express-
way section (Km 81–87), which is a part of the Ho Chi
Minh–Can Tho Expressway in the Mekong River delta of
Vietnam with the total length of 139 km. The expressway
is under constructing and is expected to be completed at the
end of 2019. The road is designed for 4-lane traffic (road
width of 25.5 m) in the first stage and for 6-lane traffic (road
width of 33.0 m) in the completion Stage. The designed
speed for the expressway is 120 km/h.
This study employed AI methods as a reliable tool for to
estimating the shear strength of soils. Accordingly, a data-
set has been collected during the geotechnical investigation
phase of the Trung Luong expressway project in Vietnam,
Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965 959

section from Km 81 to 87. It should be noted that the geo-
logical survey and laboratorial tests were carried out refer-
ring to the Vietnam Standards (22TCN259, 262, 263–2000)
for the expressway. In this Sect. 73, boreholes were drilled
with the total drilling length is of 2168.7 m. The highest
depth is 70.5 m and the lowest depth is 12.5 m. To obtain
the information of the soil layers, Standard penetration test
[41], Cone penetration test [42], and Vane Shear Test [43]
were performed. In addition, based on the Unified Soil Clas-
sification System (USCS) [44], the soil in the study area can
be classified into categories of CL (lean clay), MH (elastic
silt), and CH (fat clay).
In total, 332 samples of soil with the testing results of shear
strength (Y) have been collected. Eleven variables including
sample depth (X1), sand percentage (X2), loam percentage
(X3), clay percentage (X4), moisture content (X5), wet density
of soil (X6), specific gravity (X7), liquid limit (X8), plastic
limit (X9), plastic index (X10), and liquid index (X11) are
employed as input information. The statistical characteristics
of the variables used in this study are shown in Table 1. His-
tograms of the variables in the collected dataset are provided
in Fig. 3.
In addition, the eleven shear strength influencing factors
of the dataset have been normalized by the Z score transfor-
mation. The data transformation aims at helping to avoid the
circumstance in which the influencing factors with large mag-
nitude dominate the ones with small magnitudes. The Z score
data transformation is mathematically described as follows:
XO − mX
XN = , (8)
sX
where XN and XO denote the normalized and the original
shear strength influencing factors, respectively. mX and sX

Table 1  Statistical description Variables Unit Notation Min Mean Median Std Max
of variables
Sample depth m X1 1.00 16.88 13.50 12.79 52.00
Sand percentage % X2 0.00 8.13 2.40 12.77 57.30
Loam percentage % X3 20.00 54.15 56.35 12.22 83.70
Clay percentage % X4 10.40 37.42 37.70 11.52 63.90
Moisture content % X5 1.64 47.07 34.40 24.09 90.30
Wet density of soil g/cm3 X6 1.07 1.78 1.85 0.22 2.15
Specific gravity Unitless X7 2.37 2.70 2.70 0.06 3.69
Liquid limit % X8 21.40 54.27 54.65 14.56 79.90
Plastic limit % X9 12.90 24.67 24.05 5.28 35.90
Plastic index % X10 6.60 29.60 29.50 9.79 49.70
Liquid index Unitless X11 0.00 0.66 0.70 0.48 1.73
Shear strength cm2/kG Y 0.06 0.35 0.27 0.27 1.04

Fig. 3  Histograms of variables

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960 Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965

represent the mean value and the standard deviation of the
original influencing factors, respectively.
4 Proposed hybrid artificial intelligence
approach for predicting the shear
strength of soil
This section of the study describes the proposed AI approach
for estimating soil shear strength in detail. The proposed
approach is a hybridization of the LSSVM and CSO algo-
rithms. Therefore, the hybrid model is named as LSSVM-
CSO. LSSVM is employed to generalize the underlying
functional relationship that computes the shear strength of
soil samples based on a set of influencing factors. In addi-
tion, CSO serves as an optimizer to determine the LSSVM
hyperparameters automatically. The overall model structure
of LSSVM-CSO is provided in Fig. 4. The hybrid model is
constructed in MATLAB environment with the help of the
LS-SVMlab Toolbox [45].
At the first iteration (Iter), the two hyperparameters (𝛾
and 𝜎 ) of LSSVM, are randomly generated within the range
of lower and upper boundaries by the following equation:
Par = LB + RN × (UB − LB), (9)
Fig. 4  The proposed LSSVM-
CSO for predicting soil shear
strength
where Par denotes the tuning parameter at the first iteration.
RN is a uniform random number generated within the range
of 0 and 1. Based on the suggestion in the previous work
of [15], LB = 0.001 and UB = 1000 are the lower and upper
boundaries of the LSSVM parameters, respectively.
To identify the most appropriate set of the LSSVM hyper-
parameters (the regularization parameter 𝛾 and the kernel
function parameter 𝜎 ), the original dataset has been divided
into two exclusive sets: the Dataset 1 (80%) and the Dataset
2 (20%). The Dataset 1 is again separated into two subsets:
the training (80%) and validating (20%) subsets. The Dataset
1 is used for training and validating purpose. The Dataset 2
serves as testing cases to assess the predictive capability of
the constructed LSSVM model.
During the optimization process, the CSO algorithm
employs its local and global random walks to explore the
appropriateness of the model hyperparameters. The opti-
mization algorithm gradually discards inferior 𝛾 and 𝜎 ; it
preserves better values of the hyperparameters which lead
to better prediction accuracy.
To identify better sets of the model hyperparameters,
the following cost function (CF) is minimized by the CSO
algorithm:
RMSETraining + RMSEValidating
CF = , (10)
2
Start

The collected Tuning parameter

dataset initialization
Iter = 1
LSSVM training
Dataset 1 phase CSO Algorithm

Training and validating data

LSSVM prediction
phase

Cost function
evaluation

Stopping Iter = Iter + 1

condition Unsatisfied
Satisfied

Optimized LSSVM
Dataset 2
model
Testing data

Shear Strength
Prediction Result

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Engineering with Computers (2019) 35:955–965
where ­RMSETraining and ­RMSEValidating denote the root mean
squared error (RMSE) of prediction results of the training
and validating data, respectively.
The RMSE is calculated as follows:
√
√N
√∑ (y − t )2
RMSE = √ i i
, (11)
i=1
N
where yi and ti are the predicted and the actual values of
the shear strength, respectively; N represents the number of
data samples.
It is noted that the training and the validating sets belong
to the Dataset 1 which occupies 80% of the original data-
set. The purpose of the CF described in Eq. 10 is to guard
against overfitting phenomenon. It is because minimizing
the ­RMSETraining alone may lead to a prediction model which
has a very good fit to the training data; however, the perfor-
mance of the model when it estimates data in the testing set
is very poor. This situation is commonly known as overfit-
ting [46]. Therefore, the inclusion of the ­RMSEValidating in
the CF can help to alleviate the overfitting problem. The
CSO carries out the optimization process until a sufficient
number of searching iteration (Iter) is reach. Herein, based
on several trial-and-error runs as well as the suggestions in
the previous work of [38], the maximum number of iteration
is set to be 100. When the optimization process terminates,
the optimized LSSVM model with an appropriate set of the
hyperparameters is ready for predicting the shear strength
of soil sample in the testing dataset.
5 Results and discussion
To evaluate the performance of the LSSVM-CSO, besides
RMSE, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), Vari-
ance Accounted for (VAF) [6], and the coefficient of deter-
mination (R2) [47] are also employed in this section of the
study. The equations used to compute these two performance
measurement metrics are provided as follows:
100% ∑ || ti − yi ||
n
MAPE = , (12)
n i=1 || ti ||
[ ]
var(ti − yi )
VAF = 1 − × 100, (13)
var(ti )
{ }2
∑
n
[ ]
2
R = (1∕n) × (yi − yMean )(ti − tMean ) ∕(𝜎y 𝜎t ) ,
i=1
(14)
where t and y are the actual and the predicted values of
shear strength. yMean and tMean denotes the average values
961
of y and t, respectively. 𝜎y and 𝜎t represents the standard
deviations of y and t, respectively. Additionally, n denotes
the number of data sample.
For demonstrating the capability of the newly developed
model, the performance of LSSVM-CSO is compared with
those of benchmark models including LSSVM (without
using CSO for parameter optimization), Backpropaga-
tion Artificial Neural Network (BPANN), and Regression
Tree (RT). The LSSVM is operated via the Matlab tool-
box developed by De Brabanter et al. [45]. The BPANN
and RT models are implemented in MATLAB environment
with the help of the statistics and machine learning toolbox
[48]. It is noted that the parameter of LSSVM is tuned via a
grid search process [49]. The number of neurons required in
the setting of the BPANN model structure is selected in the
range of 5–20. Additionally, for the case of RT, the number
of minimum number of leaf node observations is allowed
to vary from 1 to 5% of the number of data instances in the
training set. The parameters of LSSVM, BPANN, and RT
associated with the smallest ­RMSEValidating are selected to be
used in the prediction phase.
At the first experiment, 20% of the whole dataset (includ-
ing 332 data samples) is randomly extracted to be used as
testing data; 80% of the dataset is used for training and vali-
dating purposes. Based on the experiment, the CSO algo-
rithm has identified the optimal regularization parameter and
kernel function parameter of LSSVM as follows: 𝛾 = 12.45
and 𝜎 = 3.72. The most appropriate regularization parameter
and kernel function parameter of LSSVM found by the grid
search algorithm are 500 and 10, respectively. The number
of neurons in the BPANN’s hidden layer is optimally set
to be 9. For RT, the number of minimum number of leaf
node observations = 1% of the number of data instances
in the training set lead to the smallest RMSE value. The
experimental results of the training and prediction phases
of the employed models are presented in Table 2. As can be
seen from this table, the predictive outcomes of LSSVM-
CSO (RMSE = 0.082, MAPE = 14.841%, VAF = 93.110;
R2 = 0.885) are better than those of LSSVM (RMSE = 0.085,
MAPE = 17.874%, VAF = 91.330; R2 = 0.875), BPANN
(RMSE = 0.097, MAPE = 21.789%, VAF = 88.151;
­R2 = 0.838) and RT (RMSE = 0.113, MAPE = 18.805%,
VAF = 86.333, R2 = 0.778). Illustrations of the performance
of the hybrid LSSVM-CSO model are provided in Figs. 5
and 6.
Moreover, since one running time of model training and
testing may not reflect the true predictive capability of the
model due to randomness in data selection, this study has
performed the random subsampling of the dataset which
includes 20 runs. In each run, 80% of the data is used for
model establishment and the rest of the data serves as testing
samples. The experimental results are reported in Table 3.
As can observed from the table, the average result of the
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Table 2  Experimental result of the training and prediction phases R2 = 0.794). These experimental outcomes point out that
Phase Metric LSSVM-CSO LSSVM BPANN RT LSSVM-CSO is best suited for the collected dataset of soil
shear strength in this study.
Training RMSE 0.078 0.079 0.081 0.052
MAPE (%) 14.910 16.059 18.150 8.529
VAF (%) 95.501 96.550 94.408 97.794 6 Concluding remarks
R2 0.922 0.919 0.915 0.966
Testing RMSE 0.082 0.085 0.097 0.113 The shear strength of soil is a crucial parameter widely used
MAPE (%) 14.841 17.874 21.789 18.805 in the design phase of construction projects. The conven-
VAF (%) 93.110 91.330 88.151 86.333 tional process of shear strength determination in laboratory
R2 0.885 0.875 0.838 0.778 is both costly and time-consuming. To avoid such limita-
tion of the conventional process, this study proposes a data-
driven method for estimating the shear strength of soils. The
testing phase of the hybrid LSSVM-CSO (RMSE = 0.096, newly proposed approach is a hybridization of LSSVM and
MAPE = 19.165, VAF = 93.088%; R2 = 0.871) is superior CSO. LSSVM is used as a function approximation technique
to those of LSSVM (RMSE = 0.102, MAPE = 20.321, which can predict the value of shear strength based on a
VAF = 91.661%; R 2 = 0.851), BPANN (RMSE = 0.113, set of input information. The CSO algorithm is employed
MAPE = 23.926, VAF = 88.639%; R 2 = 0.812), and RT to finetune the hyperparameters of LSSVM including the
(RMSE = 0.123, MAPE = 20.020, VAF = 88.266%; regularization and the kernel parameters.

Fig. 5  Prediction performance

of LSSVM-CSO in the training
and testing phases

Fig. 6  Actual vs. predicted value of shear strength yielded by LSSVM-CSO in the training and testing phases

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Table 3  Results of the random Phase Metric LSSVM-CSO LSSVM BPANN RT

subsampling process with 20
runs Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Training RMSE 0.076 0.002 0.066 0.003 0.090 0.013 0.049 0.003
MAPE (%) 14.300 0.378 12.255 0.490 18.863 3.256 8.247 0.418
VAF(%) 95.363 0.285 96.450 0.246 93.253 3.310 97.738 0.413
R2 0.922 0.004 0.941 0.004 0.888 0.032 0.966 0.004
Testing RMSE 0.096 0.011 0.102 0.018 0.113 0.033 0.123 0.018
MAPE (%) 19.165 3.190 20.321 3.638 23.926 6.390 20.020 3.320
VAF (%) 93.088 1.340 91.661 4.101 88.639 7.792 88.266 2.767
R2 0.871 0.027 0.851 0.050 0.812 0.148 0.794 0.055

To construct the hybrid model, a dataset of 332 soil
samples with testing results of shear strength has been col-
lected during the geotechnical investigation process of an
expressway construction project in Vietnam. A set of vari-
ables including sample depth, sand percentage, loam per-
centage, clay percentage, moisture content, wet density of
soil, specific gravity, liquid limit, plastic limit, plastic index,
liquid index have been employed as the shear strength’s
predictors. Experimental results have pointed out that the
hybrid LSSVM-CSO has successfully identified the map-
ping function that computes the shear strength based on
the input information provided by the influencing factors.
This fact is confirmed by a good predictive performance of
LSSVM-CSO with R2 = 0.885. The outcome of R2 implies
that almost 87% of the variation in the output variable of
the shear strength can be explained by the model. This is
a highly satisfied performance since the estimation of the
shear strength of soil is widely known to be complex and
uncertain.
Moreover, the predictive capability of LSSVM-CSO has
been shown to be superior to the benchmark approaches of
LSSVM, BPANN, and RT. Thus, one advantage of the pro-
posed LSSVM-CSO is that this model can help to attain
highly accurate predictive result of soil shear strength.
Another advantage of the newly constructed approach is that
the tuning parameters of LSSVM can be identified adap-
tively; therefore, the model training phase can be performed
automatically without domain knowledge in machine learn-
ing and metaheuristic. Therefore, the proposed hybrid AI
method is very promising to help geotechnical engineers to
quickly and reliably estimate the soil shear strength. Nev-
ertheless, one disadvantage of the model is that it is not
capable of expressing the level of importance of each input
variable. In addition, LSSVM-CSO is a black-box model;
this means that the model structure cannot be expressed
explicitly in the form of predictive equations. Such draw-
back of the current modeling approach may cause certain
difficulty for the practicing engineers to comprehend the
model behavior. Moreover, a limitation of the current study
is that the size of the dataset is still relatively small; thus,
more historical cases of soil shear strength test should be
collected to enhance the generalization of the machine learn-
ing based model.
Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Geographic
Information Science research group, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho
Chi Minh city, Vietnam. We would like to thank the Transport Engi-
neering Design Inc.—TEDI, Hanoi, Vietnam, for providing the data
for this analysis.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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