Computers and Geotechnics 33 (2006) 454–459

www.elsevier.com/locate/compgeo

Technical communication

Undrained lateral load capacity of piles in clay using

artificial neural network
Sarat Kumar Das *, Prabir Kumar Basudhar
Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India

Received 23 January 2006; received in revised form 9 August 2006; accepted 24 August 2006
Available online 17 October 2006

Abstract

This paper describes the application of the artificial neural network model to predict the lateral load capacity of piles in clay. Three
criteria were selected to compare the ANN model with the available empirical models: the best fit line for predicted lateral load capacity
(Qp) and measured lateral load capacity (Qm), the mean and standard deviation of the ratio Qp/Qm and the cumulative probability for
Qp/Qm. Different sensitivity analysis to identify the most important input parameters is discussed. A neural interpretation diagram is
presented showing the effects of input parameters. A model equation is presented based on neural network parameters.
Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Artificial neural network; Lateral pile load capacity; Statistical criteria; Sensitivity analysis

1. Introduction observed that ultimate load capacity of driven timber,

Design of axial loaded pile can be done be solving equa-
tions of static equilibrium whereas design of lateral loaded
piles requires solution of nonlinear differential equations.
Poulos and Davis [1] used elastic analysis adopting the
Winkler soil model. But such methods are not suitable
for the nonlinear soil behavior which can be incorporated
in the analysis by considering nonlinear p–y curves as sug-
gested by Matlock and Reese [2]. Portugal and Seco e Pinto
[3] used the nonlinear p–y curves and finite element method
for prediction of the behavior of laterally loaded piles.
Even though the method is most widely used, due to the
variability of soil properties there is uncertainty in such
predictions. Other semi-empirical methods used for lateral
load capacity of piles are due to Hansen [4], Broms [5] and
Meyerhof [6]. Hence, ANN models could be an alternate
approach for the above case.
Goh [7] used back propagation neural network (BPNN)
to predict the skin friction of pile in clay. Goh [8,9]
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9437390601.
E-mail addresses: saratdas@rediffmail.com, saratdas_iitk@yahoo.com
(S.K. Das).
pre-cast concrete and steel piles in cohesionless soils using
ANN was found to outperform the methods like Engineer-
ing News formula, the Hiley formula and the Janbu for-
mula. Chan et al. [10] and Teh et al. [11] found that the
static pile capacity predicted by using neural network have
excellent agreement with the same obtained by using the
commercially available computer code CAPWAP [12].
Lee and Lee [13] used neural networks to predict the ulti-
mate bearing capacity of piles based on model and in situ
pile load test results. Abu-Kiefa [14] used a generalized
regression neural network (GRNN), which is a type of
probabilistic neural network to predict the pile load capac-
ity considering separately the tip, the shaft and total load
capacity of piles driven in cohesionless soils. Nawari
et al. [15] have used neural networks for prediction of axial
load capacity of steel H-piles, steel piles and pre-stressed
and reinforced concrete piles using both BPNN and
GRNN. They also predicted the top settlement of drill
shaft due to lateral load based on in situ testing.
From the above study it can be observed that ANNs
have been used mostly for the prediction of load carrying
capacity of vertical piles. In all the above studies the perfor-
mances of ANN models have been evaluated in terms of

0266-352X/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compgeo.2006.08.006
 S.K. Das, P.K. Basudhar / Computers and Geotechnics 33 (2006) 454–459
Nomenclature
Qp predicted lateral load capacity
Qm measured lateral load capacity
Qp max predicted maximum lateral load capacity in data
set
Qp min predicted minimum lateral load capacity in data
set
Qpn normalized predicted lateral load capacity
Qm max measured maximum lateral load capacity in
data set
Qp min measured minimum lateral load capacity in data
set
Qpn normalized measured lateral load capacity
l mean
r standard deviation
P50 50% cumulative probability
P90 90% cumulative probability
D diameter of pile
correlation of coefficient (R). But, it is difficult to assess the
prediction of the model in terms of under-prediction or
over-prediction based on the R value. While describing pre-
diction of pile load capacity based on cone penetration test
(CPT), Briaud and Tucker [16] have emphasized that other
statistical criteria should be used along with the correlation
coefficient. Abu-Farsakh and Titi [17] have used the mean
(l) and standard deviation (r) of ratio of predicted pile
capacity (Qp) to the measured pile capacity (Qm) as impor-
tant parameters in evaluating different models. Therefore,
it will be desirable to have certain other statistical measures
that are unbiased, and have different form in order to test
the effectiveness of the developed models in terms of their
predictability criteria.
The ANN is considered as a black box system as it is
unable to explain the underlying principles of prediction
and the effect of inputs on the output. Therefore, interpre-
tation of weights may be considered to the subject of
future research [18]. Recently, a number of investigators
have advocated the use of connection weights to interpret
the input variable contributions in neural networks [19–
21].
With the above in view in the present study a feed for-
ward neural network based predictive model for capacity
of laterally loaded piles under undrained condition has
been developed. The three criteria are selected to compare
the ANN model with the available empirical model: the
best fit line for predicted load capacity (Qp) and measured
capacity (Qm), the mean and standard deviation of the
ratio Qp/Qm and the cumulative probability for Qp/Qm.
A neural interpretation diagram has been proposed relat-
ing the parameters affecting the pile capacity. A model
equation has been presented based on the connection
weight.
455
L depth of pile embedment
MSE mean square error
RMSE root mean square error
e eccentricity of load
Su undrained shear strength of soil
R correlation coefficient
R2 coefficient of efficiency
b0 bias at the out put layer
wk connection weight between kth neuron of
hidden layer and the single output neuron
bhk bias at the kth neuron of hidden layer
h number of neurons in the hidden layer
wik connection weight between ith input variable
and kth neuron of hidden layer
Xi normalized input variable i in the range [1, 1]
fsig sigmoid transfer function
2. Results and discussion
In the present study, the data are taken from Rao and
Suresh Kumar [22]. The data consist of diameter of pile
(D), depth of pile embedment (L), eccentricity of load (e),
undrained shear strength of soil (Su) as the inputs and
the lateral load as the output. In the present study as 38
data points are available, 29 data points were considered
for training and 9 for testing as shown in Table 1 and the
piles considered here are short and rigid piles [22]. All the
variables (inputs and output) are normalized in the range
[1, 1] before training. A multilayer feed back propagation
neural network is used with hyperbolic tangent sigmoid
function as the transfer function. The network is trained
(learning) with Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm as
it is efficient in comparison to gradient descent back prop-
agation algorithm [18,23,24]. The ANN has been imple-
mented using Matlab [25] and its neural network toolbox
[24].
The biggest challenge in successful application of ANN
is when to stop training. If training is insufficient then the
network will not be fully trained, where as if training is
excessive then it will memorize the training patter or learn
noise. So it will not generalize for a new set of data. In
training of a network as the number of epoch (iteration)
increases there is decrease in error during training, but
for testing set data initially there is decrease in error up
to a certain iteration, and then the error goes on increasing
or remains constant. Hence, the training is stopped when
the testing phase error increases even though error during
the training phase may go on decreasing. This is known
as early stopping criteria [26,27] and is implemented using
neural network toolbox of Matlab [25] by comparing the
MSE value for training and testing simultaneously.
456 S.K. Das, P.K. Basudhar / Computers and Geotechnics 33 (2006) 454–459

Table 1
Summary of training and testing data for lateral load capacity of pile (from [22])
Training data Testing data
2
D (mm) L (mm) e (mm) Su (kN/m ) Qm (N) D (mm) L (mm) e (mm) Su (kN/m2) Qm (N)
6.35 146.10 19.10 38.80 69.50 13.50 190.00 0.00 24.00 128.00
13.00 260.00 0.00 24.00 225.00 20.40 300.00 50.00 3.40 38.00
12.50 130.00 0.00 24.00 106.00 18.40 300.00 50.00 3.40 42.50
13.50 300.00 50.00 3.40 30.00 25.40 300.00 50.00 4.00 58.00
13.50 300.00 50.00 4.00 36.00 13.00 132.10 33.80 38.80 53.00
13.50 300.00 50.00 5.50 50.00 18.00 300.00 50.00 4.00 49.00
13.50 300.00 50.00 7.20 64.00 18.00 300.00 50.00 5.50 65.00
18.00 300.00 50.00 10.00 89.00 18.00 300.00 50.00 7.20 87.00
18.00 300.00 50.00 3.40 39.00 12.30 300.00 50.00 4.00 35.00
20.40 300.00 50.00 4.00 46.00
12.30 300.00 50.00 5.50 44.00
18.40 300.00 50.00 4.00 51.00
18.00 300.00 50.00 10.00 116.50
33.30 300.00 50.00 3.40 78.50
33.30 300.00 50.00 5.50 110.50
12.30 300.00 50.00 3.40 29.50
6.35 139.70 25.40 38.80 65.50
12.30 300.00 50.00 7.20 58.00
12.30 300.00 50.00 10.00 81.00
18.40 300.00 50.00 5.50 65.50
18.40 300.00 50.00 7.20 86.50
18.40 300.00 50.00 10.00 114.00
20.40 300.00 50.00 5.50 59.50
20.40 300.00 50.00 7.20 76.50
20.40 300.00 50.00 10.00 87.00
25.40 300.00 50.00 7.20 90.00
25.40 300.00 50.00 10.00 151.61
25.40 300.00 50.00 3.40 50.00
25.40 300.00 50.00 5.50 75.00

The number of neurons in the hidden layer is varied and
the minimum root mean square error (RMSE) value of
9.34 is observed with two hidden layer neurons. So with
four (4) inputs (D, L, e and Su) and two (2) hidden layer
neuron and single (1) output, the ANN is described as a
4–2–1 network architecture. The results of ANN models
are compared with that of Brom’s and Hansen method in
terms of the correlation coefficient (R) and coefficient of
efficiency (R2). The R2 is defined as
ing good correlation, the value of R2 shows the same to be
very poor (0.22). In Fig. 1 comparison of the predicted pile
load capacity using ANN, Broms’ and Hansen’s method
and their deviation from the observed one has been made.
It is observed that the ANN predicted values are less
scattered and are close to observed values signified by its
250

E1  E2
R2 ¼ ð1Þ ANN Training data
E1 200 ANN Testing data
Broms Method
Predicted load capacity (Qp )

where Hansen method

N 
P 2 150
E1 ¼ Qm  Qm Line of equality
t¼1
N 
ð1aÞ
P 2
E2 ¼ Qp  Qm 100
t¼1

The R and R2 between the observed and predicted values 50

are found to be 0.935 and 0.874 respectively for training
data and that for testing data the corresponding values
are 0.947 and 0.96. The same for the predicted values by 0
0 50 100 150 200 250
using Brom’s method are found to be 0.967 and 0.781
Observed load capacity (Qm)
respectively, whereas the corresponding values for Hansen
method are 0.941 and 0.221. So for Hansen’s method it can Fig. 1. Comparisons of predicted load capacity of piles by different
be seen that though the R value is very high (0.941) show- method with the observed values.
 S.K. Das, P.K. Basudhar / Computers and Geotechnics 33 (2006) 454–459 457

closeness to the line of equality. The mean (l) and standard
deviation (r) of Qp/Qm are important indicators of the
accuracy and precision of the prediction method [17].
Under ideal conditions an accurate and precise method
gives the mean value as 1.0 and the standard deviation to
be 0. A l value greater than 1.0 indicates over prediction
and under prediction otherwise. The best model is repre-
sented by l value close to 1.0 and r close to 0. The other
method like cumulative probability of the Qp/Qm [17] has
been also considered for the evaluation of different models.
The ratio Qp/Qm is arranged as per their values and the
cumulative probability is calculated from the following
equation:
i equation form. The same will be discussed in following
P¼
nþ1
where i is the order number given to the Qp/Qm ratio; n is
the number of data points.
If the computed value of 50% cumulative probability (P50)
is less than unity, under prediction is implied; values greater
than unity means over prediction. The ‘best’ model is corre-
sponding to the P50 value close to unity. The 90% cumulative
probability (P90) reflects the variation in the ratio of Qp/Qm
for the total observations. The model with Qp/Qm close to 1.0
is the better model. Fig. 2 shows the variation of Qp/Qm with
cumulative probability (%) for different ANN model with
both training and testing data and the results have been com-
pared with that of empirical methods. Based on l value,
ANN in both training (1.04) and testing (1.10) show good
prediction followed by the Broms method (1.148). The value
of r (0.117) is found to be minimum for the Hansen method
1.8
Hansen
1.6 Broms
ANN
1.4
Qp/Qm
followed by the Broms method and ANN. This reveals that
even though the ratio of Qp/Qm are not very much scattered
the mean value (0.58) is far from the expected value (1.0).
However, when comparing P50 value it can be seen ANN
model is the best one (P50 = 1.01 for training and 1.001 test-
ing) followed by the Broms method (P50 = 1.124). The ANN
model having P90 values (P90 = 1.17 for training and 1.156
for testing) close to 1.0 shows the effectiveness of the ANN
prediction compared to Broms method (P90 = 1.381) and
Hansen method (P90 = 0.835).
The weights and biases of the final network are pre-
sented in Table 2. The weights and biases can be utilized
for sensitivity analysis and framing an ANN model in
ð2Þ sections.
3. Sensitivity analysis
Sensitivity analysis is of utmost concern for selection of
important input variables. Different approaches have been
suggested to select the important input variables. The Pear-
son correlation coefficient is defined as one of the variable
ranking criteria in selecting proper inputs for the ANN
[19,28], Goh [29] and Shahin et al. [27] have used Garson’s
algorithm [30] in which the input-hidden and hidden-
output weights of trained ANN model are partitioned
and the absolute values of the weights are taken to select
the important input variables. So it does not provide infor-
mation on the effect of input variables in terms of directly
or inversely related to the output, and details with the
example have been presented in Goh [29]. Olden et al.
[21] presented a connection weights approach in which
the actual values of input-hidden and hidden-output
weights are taken. It adds the products across all the hid-
den neurons. The results of such a study using different
approaches are presented here as follows.
Table 3 shows the cross correlation of inputs with the Qm

value. From the table it can be seen that Qm is highly corre-

1.2
lated to e value (0.57) followed by Su, L and D as indicated
by corresponding cross correlation values. As the data set
1.0

0.8 Table 3
Cross correlation between inputs and the measured load capacity
0.6 D L e Su Qm
P90
P50 D 1.00 0.50 0.43 0.52 0.11
0.4 L 1.00 0.79 0.93 0.18
0 20 40 60 80 100
e 1.00 0.76 0.57
Cumilative Probability (%) Su 1.00 0.36
Qm 1.00
Fig. 2. Cumulative probability plots of Qp/Qm for different methods.

Table 2
Connection weights and biases for pile capacity (Qp)
Neuron Weights (wik) Biases
Input 1 Input 2 Input 3 Input 4 Output bhk b0
Hidden neuron 1 (k = 1) 1.4121 0.2503 0.6842 3.7774 2.2413 2.9916 0.8645
Hidden neuron 2 (k = 2) 0.7871 1.9661 2.5228 1.8843 2.0593 1.6005 –
458 S.K. Das, P.K. Basudhar / Computers and Geotechnics 33 (2006) 454–459

Table 4
Relative importance of different inputs as per Garson’s algorithm and connection weight approach
Parameters Garson’s algorithm (%) Connection weight approach
Relative Ranking of inputs as Sj values as per Connection Ranking of inputs as per
importance per relative importance weight approach relative importance
D 17.02 3 1.54 4
L 15.78 4 4.61 1
E 23.20 2 3.66 3
Su 44 1 4.59 2

are for short piles, it can be concluded that the cross corre- 1
lation does not show the physical relationship between
input and output. The sensitivity analysis for the model as
per Garson’s method [29,30] and Olden et al. [21] connec- 2 A
tion weight approach to find out important input parame-
ters are presented in Table 4. The Su is found to be the Qp
most important input parameter followed by e, D and L O
3
as per Garson’s method. It can also be seen that as per
the Olden et al. [21] method, L and Su are equally, the most
important input parameters followed by e and D. So it can B 1- D
4 2- L
be concluded that the interpretation of the weights to find 3- e
out the important input parameters based on Garson’s 4- Su
algorithm [29,30] and connection weight approach [21]
matches the physical meaning for lateral load carrying
Fig. 3. The NID showing axons representing connection weights and
capacity of piles. effects of inputs on Qp.

4. Neural interpretation diagram (NID)

5. ANN model equation for the Qp value based on trained
Ozesmi and Ozesmi [31] proposed the neural interpreta- neural network
tion diagram (NID) for visual interpretation of the connec-
tion weight among the neurons. In the NID the lines The basic mathematical equation as per the ANN relat-
joining the input-hidden and hidden-output neurons repre- ing the input variables and the output can be written as
sent the magnitude of weights and their directions. The ( " !#)
positive weights are represented by black lines and negative X h X
m

weights by grey lines and the thickness of the lines is pro-
portional to their magnitude. The relationship between
the input and output is determined in two steps. Positive
effect of the input variables is depicted by positive input-
hidden and positive hidden-output weights, or negative
input-hidden and negative hidden-output weights. The
positive input-hidden and negative hidden-output and neg-
ative input-hidden and positive hidden-output weight indi-
cate the negative effect of the input variables. So unlike
absolute multiplication of weights, in this case multiplica-
tion of actual weights of input-hidden and hidden-output
indicates the effect of that input variable on the output.
The input having positive effect on the output is repre-
sented with grey circles and that having negative effect with
white circles. For the present example with the weights as
obtained and shown in Table 2, a NID is presented as
shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen from Fig. 3 that the inputs
D, L and Su have positive contribution to the Qp values
and e has negative effects on the Qp value. Thus it inferred
that D, L and Su are directly and e is indirectly propor-
tional to Qp value. So it can be seen that NID is an effective
method in indicating the physical relationship between
inputs with the output.
Qpn ¼ fsig b0 þ wk  fsig bhk þ wik X i ð3Þ
k¼1 i¼1
where Qpn is the normalized (in the range 1 to 1 in this
case) Qp value; b0 is the bias at the out put layer; wk is
the connection weight between kth neuron of hidden layer
and the single output neuron; bhk is the bias at the kth neu-
ron of hidden layer; h is the number of neurons in the hid-
den layer; wik is the connection weight between ith input
variable and kth neuron of hidden layer; Xi is the normal-
ized input variable i in the range [1, 1] and fsig is the sig-
moid transfer function.
Hence, the model equation for the output can be formu-
lated based on the trained weights of the ANN model. In
this study, such a model equation for lateral load carrying
capacity of pile was established using the values of the
weights and biases shown in Table 2 as per the following
expressions.
A1 ¼ 2:9916 þ 1:4121D þ 0:2503L þ 0:6842e þ 3:7774S u
ð4Þ
A2 ¼ 1:6005  0:7871D þ 1:9661L  2:5228e  1:8843S u
ð5Þ
 S.K. Das, P.K. Basudhar / Computers and Geotechnics 33 (2006) 454–459
eA1  eA1
B1 ¼ 2:2413  ð6Þ
eA1 þ eA1
eA2  eA2
B2 ¼ 2:0593  A ð7Þ
e 2 þ eA2
C 1 ¼ 0:8645 þ B1 þ B2 ð8Þ
C1 C 1
e e
Qpn ¼ ð9Þ
eC1 þ eC1
The Qpn value as obtained from Eq. (9) is in the range
[1, 1] and this needs to be denormalized as
Qp ¼ 0:5ðQpn þ 1ÞðQp max  Qp min Þ þ Qp min ð10Þ
where Qp max and Qp min are the maximum and minimum
values of Qp respectively in the data set.
6. Conclusions
The following conclusions can be drawn from the above
studies:
(1) The three criteria that were selected to compare the
performances of developed ANN model with the
available empirical model (the best fit line for pre-
dicted load capacity (Qp) and measured capacity
(Qm), the mean and standard deviation of the ratio
Qp/Qm and the cumulative probability for Qp/Qm)
showed that, the developed ANN model is more effi-
cient compared to empirical models of Hansen and
Broms.
(2) The sensitivity analysis based on cross correlation
does not reflect the physical relationship between
the input and output. As per Garson’s algorithm
undrained shear strength, and according to connec-
tion weight approach, length and the undrained shear
strength are almost equally important inputs. Hence,
it matches the physical meaning for lateral load carry-
ing capacity of short piles.
(3) Based on NID and connection eight approaches it is
observed that lateral load capacity of pile is increase
with increase in diameter, length and un-drained
cohesive strength of soil and decreases with increase
in eccentricity of load application.
(3) A model equation is presented based on the trained
weights of the ANN.
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