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Formulation of uplift capacity of suction caissons using multi expression programming

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Abstract

Suction caissons have increasingly been used as foundations and anchors for deepwater offshore structures in the last decade. The increased use of suction caissons defines a serious need to develop more authentic methods for simulating their behavior. Reliable assessment of uplift capacity of caissons in cohesive soils is a critical issue facing design engineers. This paper proposes a new approach for the formulation of the uplift capacity of suction caissons using a promising variant of Genetic Programming (GP), namely Multi Expression Programming (MEP). The proposed model is developed based on experimental results obtained from the literature. The derived MEP-based formula takes into account the effect of aspect ratio of caisson, shear strength of clayey soil, point of application and angle of inclination of loading, soil permeability and loading rate. A subsequent parametric analysis is carried out and the trends of the results are confirmed via previous studies. The results indicate that the MEP formulation can predict the uplift capacity of suction caissons with an acceptable level of accuracy. The proposed formula provides a prediction performance better than or comparable with the models found in the literature. The MEP-based simplified formulation is particularly valuable for providing an analysis tool accessible to practicing engineers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Civil Engineeing, Tafresh University, Tafresh, Markazi, 19395, Iran

    Amir Hossein Gandomi

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, 16846, Iran

    Amir Hossein Alavi

  3. Dept. of Civil Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325-3905, USA

    Gun Jin Yun

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  1. Amir Hossein Gandomi
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  2. Amir Hossein Alavi
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  3. Gun Jin Yun
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Correspondence to Gun Jin Yun.

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Gandomi, A.H., Alavi, A.H. & Yun, G.J. Formulation of uplift capacity of suction caissons using multi expression programming. KSCE J Civ Eng 15, 363–373 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-011-1117-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-011-1117-9

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