Estimating the Ultimate Bearing Capacity for Strip Footing Near and within Slopes Using AI (GP, ANN, and EPR) Techniques

Numerical and computational analyses surrounding the behavior of the bearing capacity of soils near or adjacent to slopes have been of great importance in earthwork constructions around the globe due to its unique nature. This phenomenon is encountered on pavement vertical curves, drainages, and vertical infrastructure foundations. In this work, multiple data were collected on the soil and footing interface parameters, which included width of footing, depth of foundation, distance of slope from the footing edge, soil bulk density, slope and frictional angles, and bearing capacity factors of cohesion and overburden pressure determined for the case of a foundation on or adjacent to a slope. The genetic programming (GP), evolutionary polynomial regression (EPR), and artificial neural network (ANN) intelligent techniques were employed to predict the ultimate bearing capacity of footing on or adjacent to a slope. The performance of the models was evaluated as well as compared their accuracy and robustness with the findings of Prandtl. The results were observed to show the superiority of GP, EPR, and ANN techniques over the computational works of Prandtl. In addition, the ANN outclassed the other artificial intelligence methods in the exercise.