Prediction of Permanent Earthquake-Induced Deformation in Earth Dams and Embankments Using Artificial Neural Networks

Abstract

This research intends to develop a method based on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict permanent earthquake-induced deformation of the earth dams and embankments. For this purpose, data sets of observations from 152 published case histories on the performance of the earth dams and embankments, during the past earthquakes, was used. In order to predict earthquake-induced deformation of the earth dams and embankments a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) analysis was used. A four-layer, feed-forward, back- propagation neural network, with a topology of 7-9-7-1 was found to be optimum. The results showed that an appropriately trained neural network could reliably predict permanent earthquake-induced deformation of the earth dams and embankments.