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3 AUTHORS:
Akbar Javadi
Asaad Faramarzi
University of Exeter
University of Birmingham
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Alireza Ahangar-Asr
University of Salford
25 PUBLICATIONS 81 CITATIONS
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Computational Geomechanics Group, College of Engineering Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Harrison Building, North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK
Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Greenwich, Central Avenue, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4TB, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
abstract
Article history:
Received 9 April 2011
Received in revised form
17 April 2012
Accepted 18 April 2012
Available online 16 May 2012
In this paper, a new approach is presented for modelling of behaviour of soils in nite element analysis
under cyclic loading. This involves development of a unied approach to modelling of complex
materials using evolutionary polynomial regression (EPR) and its implementation in the nite element
method. EPR is a data mining technique that generates a clear and structured representation of
the system being studied. The main advantage of an EPR-based constitutive model (EPRCM) over
conventional models is that it provides the optimum structure and parameters of the material model
directly from raw experimental (or eld) data. The development and validation of the method will be
presented followed by the application to study of behaviour of soils under cyclic loading. The results of
the analyses will be compared with those obtained from standard nite element analysis using
conventional constitutive models. It will be shown that the EPR-based models offer an effective
and unied approach to modelling of materials with complex behaviour in nite element analysis of
boundary value problems.
& 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Finite element
Evolutionary computation
Material modelling
Cyclic loading
EPR
1. Introduction
Finite element method has, in recent decades, been widely
used as a powerful tool in the analysis of engineering problems. In
this numerical analysis, the behaviour of the actual material is
approximated with that of an idealised material that deforms
in accordance with some constitutive relationships. Therefore, the
choice of an appropriate constitutive model that adequately
describes the behaviour of the material plays an important role
in the accuracy and reliability of the numerical predictions. During
the past few decades several constitutive models have been
developed for various materials including soils. Among these
models there are simple elastic models [1], plastic models (e.g.,
[2]), models based on critical state theory [3], and single or double
hardening models [4,5], etc. Most of these models involve determination of material parameters, many of which have little or no
physical meaning [6]. In conventional constitutive material modelling, an appropriate mathematical model is initially selected and
the parameters of the model (material parameters) are identied
from appropriate physical tests on representative samples to
capture the material behaviour. When these constitutive models
are used in nite element analysis, the accuracy with which the
selected material model represents the various aspects of the
actual material behaviour and also the accuracy of the identied
material parameters affect the accuracy of the nite element
predictions.
In the past few years, the use of articial neural networks
(ANN) has been introduced as an alternative approach to constitutive modelling of materials. The application of ANN for
modelling of the behaviour of concrete was rst proposed by
Ghaboussi et al. 1991 [7]. Ghaboussi and Sidarta [8] presented an
improved technique of ANN approximation for learning the
mechanical behaviour of drained and undrained sand. Ghaboussi
et al. 1998 and Sidarta and Ghaboussi [9,10] presented a new
autoprogressive approach to train ANN constitutive model
(autoprogressive ANN). In this approach initially, a nite element
model of an available experimental test (with the measured
boundary forces and displacements) is created using a pre-trained
ANN model as the constitutive material model. Then the measured forces and displacements data are applied incrementally to
the FE model and through the increments the ANN model is
updated with more data. The data for training ANN come from the
stresses and strains at gauss points of all elements. In this method
the main idea is that the FE model of the experimental tests
usually contain a large number of stresses and strains with a wide
range of different values that can be used for training of the ANN
model. Hashash et al. [11] continued and extended the autoprogressive training methodology in a new framework, self learning
54
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
n
X
FX,f X,aj a0
j1
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
processes. While the selection of feasible structures to be combined is done through an evolutionary process the parameters aj
are estimated by the least square method.
EPR is a technique for data-driven modelling. In this technique,
the combination of the genetic algorithm to nd feasible structures and the least square method to nd the appropriate
constants for those structures implies some advantages. In particular, the GA allows a global exploration of the error surface
relevant to specically dened objective functions. By using such
objective functions some criteria can be set in order to (i) avoid
overtting of models, (ii) push the models towards simpler
structures, and (iii) avoid unnecessary terms representative of
the noise in data [36]. Selecting an appropriate objective function,
assuming pre-selected elements in Eq. (1) based on engineering
judgment, and working with dimensional information enable
renement of nal models. Application and capability of EPR in
modelling and analysing different civil and geotechnical engineering problems have been investigated by the authors, [3739].
Detailed explanation of the method is out of the scope of this
paper and can be found in [36,40].
Dr DDe
Dqi
Dei1
4
!
nEPR 1
Before starting the training procedure, a number of constraints
can be implemented to control the evolutionary process in terms
55
Deiv
=2
Dei1
56
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
EPR
FEA
Start
Start
Current state of
stresses and strains
Load Increment
Loop
Genetic
Algorithm
UMAT
EPRCM(s)
Mathematical
Structure
1- Next state of
Stresses
2- Jacobian Matrix
EPR
Constitutive
equation
Symbolic
Function
Iteration Loop
Least Square
NO
Convergence
YES
Fitness
NO
Output Result
Whole load
applied?
YES
NO
STOP
Fig. 1. The incorporation of EPR-based material model in ABAQUS nite element software.
BT DBdO
5. Numerical examples
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
5.1. Example 1
This example involves a thick circular cylinder conforming to
plane strain conditions. Fig. 2 shows the geometric dimensions
and the element discretization employed in the solution where 12
eight-node isoparametric elements have been used. The cylinder
is made of linear elastic material with a Youngs modulus of
E2.1 105 N/mm2 and a Poissons ratio of 0.3 [42]. This example
was deliberately kept simple in order to verify the computational
methodology by comparing the results with those of a linear
elastic nite element model. The compressibility of the material
is assumed to be negligible and hence the EPR model for
volumetric strain is not considered in this example. The loading
case considered involves an internal pressure of 8.0 104 kPa as
shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 3a shows a linear elastic stressstrain relationship with a
gradient of 2.1 105 MPa. The slope of this line represents the
elastic modulus, E, for the material. The data from this gure were
used to train the EPR model in order to capture the linear stress
strain relationship for the material.
After training, the selected EPR model to represent the stress
strain:
qi 1
100 mm
Deq
3:4662 106
q
qi 2:4231 1011 Deq
q
qi 0:01197
200
Radial Stress (MPa)
250
200
Stress (MPa)
1:5 108
200 mm
150
100
50
160
Standard FEM
IFEM (EPRCM)
120
80
40
0
0
0
0.0002
0.0004
0.0006
0.0008
0.001
40
80
120
160
200
radius (mm)
Strain
0.08
Radial Displacement (mm)
250
200
Stress (MPa)
57
150
100
50
0.06
Standard FEM
0.04
IFE (EPRCM)
0.02
0
0
0.0002
0.0004
0.0006
Strain
0.0008
0.001
Fig. 3. (a) Linear stressstrain relationship used for training and (b) the results of
EPR predictions for stressstrain values.
40
80
120
160
200
radius (mm)
Fig. 4. Comparison of the results of the EPR-FEM and standard FEM solution in
terms of (a) radial stress and (b) radial displacement.
58
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
Output parameter
qi 1
eiv 1
700
Deviatoric Stress (kPa)
Input parameters
800
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
0
10
15
20
25
30
Deviatoric Strain %
700
600
Deviatoric Stress (kPa)
5.2. Example 2
Table 1
Input and output parameters used for training the
EPR constitutive model for the tunnel example.
500
400
300
200
100
0
0
10
15
20
25
30
Deviatoric Strain %
Fig. 6. (a) Results of training of the ANN and (b) stressstrain relationship
predicted by the trained EPR.
qi
q Deq
qi
8a
8b
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
qi qi 1
eiv eiv 1
10
0
-1
10
15
20
25
30
-2
p0i p0i
qi 1 qi
3
11
-3
-4
-5
-6
-7
Deviatoric Strain %
Deviatoric Strain %
0
0
Volumetric Strain %
10
15
20
25
30
12
and the next points on the curves are predicted using the EPR
models. The incremental procedure is continued until all the points
on the curves are predicted. Fig. 9(a) and (b) show the comparison
between two complete curves predicted using the EPR models
following the above incremental procedure and the experimental
results. The predicted results are in good agreement with the
experimental results and the facts that (i) the entire curves have
been predicted point by point; (ii) the errors of prediction of the
individual points are accumulated in this process, and still the EPR
-1
800
-2
700
-3
-4
-5
-6
Volumetric Strain %
59
600
500
400
300
200
100
Fig. 7. (a) Results of training of the EPR and (b) volumetric strain predicted by the
trained EPR.
0
0
10
15
20
25
30
25
30
1
0
-1
10
15
20
-2
-3
-4
-5
-6
-7
-8
Fig. 8. procedure followed for updating of the input parameters and building the
entire stress path for a shearing stage of a triaxial test.
60
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
models are able to predict the complete stress paths with a good
degree of accuracy are testaments to the robustness of the
developed EPR framework for modelling of soils.
These gures show that the EPR has been able to capture the
general trend of the nonlinear relationship of stress and strain
with a good accuracy. It also shows that the EPR model was
trained sufciently to adequately model the stressstrain behaviour of the soil. The trained EPRCMs were incorporated in the
EPR-based nite element (EPR-FEM) using UMAT in ABAQUS. The
FE incorporating the EPR models was then used to simulate the
behaviour of the tunnel under gravity and excavation loadings.
For the conventional nite element analyses, the results of the
triaxial tests were used to derive the material parameters for the
Modied Cam Clay (MCC) and MohrCoulomb (MC) models for
the soil (see Table 2).
Fig. 10 shows the comparison between the displacements in the
tunnel predicted using standard nite element analyses using the
MCC and MC models as well as the EPR-based nite element
method where the raw data from the triaxial tests were directly
used in deriving the EPR-based constitutive model. Deformations of
tunnel is magnied by a factor of 5. The patterns of deformation are
similar in all three analyses. Despite the relatively small difference
between the results from the different analyses, it can be argued
that the EPR-based FE results are more reliable, as this method used
the original raw experimental data to learn the constitutive
relationships for the material and it did not assume a priori any
particular constitutive relationships, yield conditions, etc.
From the results obtained, it is shown that the developed
intelligent nite element method is also capable of capturing
more complex constitutive relationships of materials and can
offer very realistic prediction of the behaviour of structures.
5.3. Example 3: behaviour of soil under cyclic loading
In this example, the behaviour of a soil is studied in triaxial
tests under cyclic axial loading. The test data for this example
were generated by numerical simulation of triaxial experiments.
In general, generating data by numerical simulation has advantages including: (i) it is more economic (ii) it is far less time
demanding, (iii) it can simulate loading paths and test conditions
that cannot be easily achieved in physical testing due to physical
constraints of the testing equipment. The data for training and
validation of the EPR were created by nite element simulation of
triaxial cyclic loading tests at constant cell pressures using the
Modied Cam Clay model. The material parameters assumed for
the soil are:
Table 2
Material parameters for Modied Cam Clay and MohrCoulomb models.
C 0 (kPa)
f0 deg:
e0
11.7
21
0.8
0.00715
0.921
0.3
g (kN/m3)
17
l
0.091
250
250 kPa
200 kPa
300 kPa
200
150 kPa
150
100 kPa
100
50
0
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
Strain
0.08
Volumetric Strain
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
Axial Strain
Fig. 10. Comparison of the results of the intelligent FEA and conventional FE
analyses using MohrCoulomb and DuncanChang models.
Fig. 11. Typical cyclic loading test data used for training and validation of EPR.
(a) Shear stress and (b) volumetric strain.
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
The generated data were used to train and test EPRCMs. The
EPRCMs were then incorporated in the intelligent EPR-based
nite element model to represent the soil behaviour under cyclic
loading. The results of the EPR-based nite element analyses were
compared with those attained using conventional nite element
method. The performance of the model was evaluated for two
separate cases of loading where the soil was subjected to:
1:0525qi 0:71525
4 increments
8 increments
20 increments
40 increments
13a
p0 e1
p0
qi
0:45727De1 0:99eiv 0:000041535
13b
Fig. 13(a) and (b) show the results predicted by Eqs. (13a)
and (13b), respectively, for the training data set together with the
actual training data. Fig. 13(a) shows the results of the devitoric
stress model for different conning pressures. Typical results of
the volumetric strain model (Eq. (13b)) at conning pressure of
100 kPa are presented in Fig. 13(b) together with the actual data.
It is seen from the gures that the EPR models were capable of
learning, with very good accuracy, the constitutive relationship of
the soil under cyclic loading paths. The trained EPRCMs were
validated using a data set corresponding to the conning pressure
of 250 kPa. The results of the validation tests are shown in
Fig. 14(a) and (b). It is shown that the trained EPR models were
able to generalise the training to loading cases that were not
introduced to the EPR during training. Moreover the incremental
prediction capability (described in Example 2) of the developed
300
Actual Data (100 kPa)
250
Deviatoric Stress (kPa)
40
qi
eiv
eiv
eiv 1
50
61
200
150
100
50
30
0
0.00
20
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
Axial Strain
10
0.07
0.002
0.004
0.006
0.008
0.010
0.012
0.014
Strain
Fig. 12. Typical cyclic loading test results with different load increments at
conning pressure of 150 kPa.
Table 3
Input and output parameters used for training and
testing of the EPR models for shear stress and
volumetric strain cyclic models.
Input parameters
Output parameter
0.06
Volumetric Strain
0
0.000
0.08
0.05
0.04
Actual Data
EPR prediction
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
Axial Strain
p0i , qi , eiv , ei1 , Dei1
qi 1
eiv 1
Fig. 13. Results of training of the EPR: (a) prediction of shear stress and
(b) prediction of volumetric strain.
62
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
250
250
100
50
0
0.00
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
200
150
100
50
0
0.00
0.08
EPR
CAM_CLAY
0.01
0.02
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.06
Volumetric Strain (kPa)
0.05
Volumetric Strain
0.04
0.07
0.06
0.03
Axial Strain
Axial Strain
0.05
EPR
CAM_CLAY
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
Axial Strain
0
0.00
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
Axial Strain
Fig. 14. Results of the validation of the trained EPR models: comparison between
the actual (numerically simulated) data and the EPR predictions for conning
pressure of 250 kPa. (a) Shear stress relationship and (b) volumetric strain
relationship.
Fig. 15. Comparison of EPR incremental simulation with the actual data for
conning pressure 250 kPa in cyclic load problem (a) simulation of deviatoric
stress and (b) simulation of volumetric strain.
EPRCMs is examined in Fig. 15(a) and (b) where the model results
are compared to the actual data.
After training and validation, the EPRCMs were incorporated in
the EPR-based nite element model. The model was then used to
simulate the behaviour of the soil in triaxial cyclic loading tests at
a conning pressure of 250 kPa. Two different cases were simulated using the EPR-FEM and the results were compared with
those obtained from a conventional FE simulation using the
Modied Cam Clay model.
trained with regular cyclic loading data, would be able to generalise the training to predict the behaviour of the soil for irregular
loading patterns that are different from those used for training of
the EPR model. Although the loading pattern was different from
that used for training of the EPR, the imposed strains (and loads)
used in the simulation were kept within the ranges of values used
for training so as to avoid extrapolation.
In this case, the EPR-based FE model was used to simulate the
behaviour of the soil with an irregular cyclic loading pattern as
shown in Fig. 17. The test was simulated at conning pressure of
250 kPa that was not introduced to the EPR during training. The
test involved the application (and removal) of total axial strains of
2.4% and 6% in the rst and second cycles, respectively.
In Fig. 18, the results of the EPR-FEM are compared with those
attained using the conventional FE simulation of the same
irregular pattern. From the gure, it can be seen that the results
of the EPR-based FE simulation are in a very good agreement with
those obtained using the conventional FEM. The results are also
compared with those obtained for a regular 5-cycle pattern
with imposed strains of 1.2, 2.4, 3.6, 4.8, 6.0% in cycles 1 to 5,
respectively. Comparison of the results shows that, although the
EPR was only trained with data from regular cyclic loading tests,
the EPR-FEM was able to predict the behaviour of the soil under
irregular loading patterns. It can be concluded that the EPR-FEM
is also capable of generalising the behaviour of the soil for cyclic
loading with different loading and unloading patterns. This
further illustrates the robustness of the proposed EPR-FEM and
shows the excellent capability of the method in capturing
the underlying constitutive relationships for the material from
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
180
250
160
EPR-FEM
FE (CAM_CLAY)
EPR-FEM
FE (CAM_CLAY)
140
Deviatoric Stress
Deviatoric Stress
200
63
150
100
120
100
80
60
40
50
20
0.045
0.05
0.045
0.06
EPR-FEM
FE (CAM_CLAY)
0.04
Volumetric Strain
Volumetric Strain
0.040
Axial Strain
0.07
0.05
0.035
0.070
0.030
0.060
Axial Strain
0.025
0.050
0.020
0.040
0.015
0.030
0.010
0.020
0.005
0.010
0.000
0
0.000
0.04
0.03
0.02
EPR-FEM
FE (CAM_CLAY)
0.035
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.01
0.005
Fig. 16. Comparison between the results of the intelligent FEA and a conventional
FEA for multiple regular loading cycles.
0.045
0.040
0.035
0.030
0.025
0.020
0.015
0.010
0.005
Axial Strain
0
0.000
0
0.000 0.010 0.020 0.030 0.040 0.050 0.060 0.070
Axial Strain
Fig. 17. Comparison between the results of the intelligent FEM and a conventional
FEM for two irregular loading cycles.
materials (i.e., all aspects of material behaviour can be implemented within a unied environment of an EPR model); it does
not require any arbitrary choice of the constitutive (mathematical) models; the incorporation of an EPR based constitutive model
in a nite element procedure avoids the need for complex
yielding/plastic potential/failure functions, ow rules, etc.; there
is no need to check yielding, to compute the gradients of the
plastic potential curve or to update the yield surface; there are no
material parameters to be identied and the model is trained
directly from experimental data.
The EPR is capable of learning the material behaviour directly
from raw experimental data, therefore, EPRCM is the shortest
route from experimental research (data) to numerical modelling.
The EPR model is simple and effective if appropriate experimental
data are available. Another advantage of EPR based constitutive
model is that as more experimental data become available, the
quality of the EPR prediction can be improved by learning from
the additional data, and therefore, the EPRCM can become more
effective and robust.
A trained EPRCM can be incorporated in a FE code/procedure in
the same way as a conventional constitutive model. It can be
incorporated either as incremental or total stressstrain strategies.
An EPR-based FE method can be used for solving boundary value
problems in the same way as a conventional FEM. In this study
two EPR models were implemented in the FE analysis. Currently,
undergoing research in CGG in University of Exeter is investigating
the computing of the entire stiffness (Jacobian) matrix elements,
64
A.A. Javadi et al. / Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 58 (2012) 5365
180
160
EPR-FEM
FE (CAM_CLAY)
Deviatoric Stress
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0.045
0.040
0.035
0.030
0.025
0.020
0.015
0.010
0.005
0.000
Axial Strain
0.05
0.045
Volumetric Strain
0.04
EPR-FEM
FE (CAM_CLAY)
0.035
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0.045
0.040
0.035
0.030
0.025
0.020
0.015
0.010
0.005
0.000
Axial Strain
Fig. 18. Comparison between the results of the intelligent FEM for 2 irregular
loading cycles and the original cycle loading data used for training.
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