Harmony Search , Soft Computing and Applications

Consistency limits are precious soil parameters that are directly representing mineralogical and physical properties of fine grained soils. The consistency limits, are also used to estimate strength and rigidity properties of clayey soils indirectly. Therefore consistency limits of fine grained soils are considered as fundamental properties and they are evaluated as the standard entries to any soil research program. However the consistency tests are assumed as the simple and basic tests of geotechnical engineering, the application details of the tests endamage their reliability and correctness. In this project, it is aimed to evaluate the engineering characteristics of fine grained soils by taking into account the values of consistency limits with the use of both regression analysis and artificial neural networks. A database is prepared by the use of 1500 soil investigation reports that are involving the site characterization informations, laboratory and field tests about İstanbul Province European side clayey soils. Numerical relationships are tried to be developed to determine the values of engineering properties of soils such as plastic limit and plasticity index directly from liquid limit tests. In addition to these the strength and rigidity characteristics of specified high and low plastic clayey soils are also investigated and the evaluated relations or equations are compared with the well-known sources from literature.