Prediction of California bearing ratio (CBR) for coarse- and fine-grained soils using the GMDH-model

This study presents the prediction of the California bearing ratio (CBR) of coarse-and fine-grained soils using artificial intelligence technology. The group method of data handling (GMDH) algorithm, an artificial neural network-based model, was used in the prediction of the CBR values. In the design of the prediction models, various combinations of independent input variables for both coarse-and fine-grained soils have been used. The results obtained from the designed GMDH-type neural networks (GMDH-type NN) were compared with other regression models, such as linear, support vector, and multilayer perception regression methods. The performance of models was evaluated with a regression coefficient (R2), root-mean-square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE). The results showed that GMDH-type NN algorithm had higher performance than other regression methods in the prediction of CBR value for coarse-and fine-grained soils. The GMDH model had an R2 of 0.938, RMSE of 1.87, and MAE of 1.48 for the input variables {G, S, and MDD} in coarse-grained soils. For fine-grained soils, it had an R2 of 0.829, RMSE of 3.02, and MAE of 2.40, when using the input variables {LL, PI, MDD, and OMC}. The performance evaluations revealed that the GMDH-type NN models were effective in predicting CBR values of both coarse-and fine-grained soils.