Estimating model parameters of rockfill materials based on genetic algorithm and strain measurements

The hyperbolic stress-strain model has been shown to be valid for modeling nonlinear stress-strain behavior for rockfill materials. The Duncan-Chang nonlinear constitutive model was adopted to characterize the behavior of the modeled rockfill materials in this study. Accurately estimating the model parameters of rockfill materials is a key problem for simulating dam deformations during both the dam construction period and the dam operation period. In order to estimate model parameters, triaxial compression experiments of rockfill materials were performed. Based on a genetic algorithm, the constitutive model parameters of the rockfill material were determined from the triaxial compression experimental data. The investigation results show that the predicted strains provide satisfactory precision when compared with the observed strains and the strains forecasted by a gradient-based optimization algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed inversion procedure of model parameters was verified by experimental investigation in a laboratory.