Soil parameter identification using a genetic algorithm

This paper is dedicated to the identification of constitutive parameters of the Mohr–Coulomb constitutive model from in situ geotechnical measurements. A pressuremeter curve and the horizontal displacements of a sheet pile wall retaining an excavation are successively used as measurements. Two kinds of optimization algorithms are used to minimize the error function, the first one based on a gradient method and the second one based on a genetic algorithm. The efficiency of each algorithm related to the error function topology is discussed. Finally, it is shown that the use of a genetic algorithm to identify the soil parameters seems particularly suitable when the topology of the error function is complex. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.