JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS

JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS

Prediction of maximum ground surface settlement due to urban tunneling operations using GEP and MEP evolutionary algorithms

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Fariborz Matinpour 1
Shadman Mohammadi Bolbanabad 2
Mohammad Rezaei 3
Vahab Sarfarazi 4
1 School of Mining Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
3 Department of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
4 Department of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Hamedan University of Technology, Hamedan
10.22034/irsrm.2024.570083.8001
Abstract
This study aims to predict the maximum ground surface settlement (Smax) induced by shallow urban tunneling using two evolutionary algorithms: Gene expression programming (GEP) and multi expression programming (MEP). A dataset comprising 24 tunneling projects with 9 key input parameters including tunnel depth (H), groundwater height (W), tunnel diameter (D), soil elasticity modulus (E), undrained shear strength (Cu), earth pressure coefficient (K0), unit weight of soil (γ), gap parameter (g), and stability number (N), was collected and randomly split into training and testing sets. Both GEP and MEP were applied to the training data to develop predictive mathematical models for Smax. Additionally, a linear multivariable regression (LMR) model was built for comparison. Model performance was evaluated using Taylor diagrams, Regression Error Characteristic (REC) curves, and five statistical indices: R², VAF, a20-index, RMSE, and MAE. Results revealed that both AI-based models, particularly GEP, outperformed the LMR model in accuracy and reliability. Further validation using ANOVA, t-tests, residual plots, and 95% confidence intervals confirmed the statistical robustness and generalizability of the developed models. Sensitivity analysis indicated that g, Cu, and N were the most influential parameters, while γ and K0 had the least impact on Smax.
Keywords
Tunneling operations
Maximum ground surface settlement
Gene expression programming
Multi expression programming Linear multivariate regression
Subjects
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JOURNAL OF ROCK MECHANICS
Volume 8, Issue 3
Autumn 2024
Pages 57-83