Liquefaction Microzonation of Babol City Using Artificial Neural Network

Liquefaction microzonation is a process that involves incorporation of geologic, seismologic and geotechnical concerns into economically, sociologically and politically justifiable and defensible land-use planning for earthquake effects so that engineers can site and design structures that will be less susceptible to damage during earthquakes. The scope of present study is to prepare the liquefaction microzonation map for the Babol city based on Seed and Idriss (1983) method using artificial neural network. Artificial neural network (ANN) is one of the artificial intelligence (AI) approaches that can be classified as machine learning. Simplified methods have been practiced by researchers to assess nonlinear liquefaction potential of soil. In order to address the collective knowledge built-up in conventional liquefaction engineering, an alternative general regression neural network model is proposed in this paper. To meet this objective, an effort is made to introduce a total of 30 boreholes data in an area of 7 km2 which includes the results of field tests into the neural network model and the prediction of artificial neural network is checked in some test boreholes, finally the liquefaction microzonation map is produced for research area. Based on the obtained results, it can be stated that the trained neural network is capable in prediction of liquefaction potential with an acceptable level of confidence. At the end, zoning of the city is carried out based on the prediction of liquefaction potential variations in the study area.