Construction and Building

Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 14061414

MATERIALS
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Fuzzy logic modeling of deection behavior against dynamic loading in exible pavements
Mehmet Saltan
a

a,*

, Suna Saltan b, Ahmet S ahiner

Su leyman Demirel University, Department of Civil Engineering, Cunur Kampusu Bati Kampusu, 32260 Isparta, Turkey b Su leyman Demirel University, Department of Mathematics, 32260 Isparta, Turkey c Su leyman Demirel University, Department of Mathematics, 32260 Isparta, Turkey Received 15 March 2006; received in revised form 14 July 2006; accepted 14 July 2006 Available online 11 September 2006

Abstract Flexible pavements are especially aected by moving vehicles. As a result of the moving vehicles, the pavement starts to deteriorate. For the determination of the structural capacity of the pavement, non-destructive testing equipments are used. These are mainly Benkelman beam, Dynaect and falling weight deectometer (FWD). In such a process, the most important thing is to analyze the collected data. In general, linear elastic theory and nite element method are used for this purpose. Since linear elastic theory and nite element method are time consuming, a fuzzy logic approach is used for the elimination of this drawback during the course of this study. Results indicate that the fuzzy logic approach can be used for the modeling of the deection behavior against dynamic vehicle loading for exible pavements. The fuzzy model is able to predict the deection behavior against dynamical loading. The new approach can capture the nonlinearity of surface deection behavior. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Flexible pavements; Structural capacity; Deection; Fuzzy logic

1. Introduction Non-destructive testing (NDT) and assessment of deection behavior of exible pavements are wellaccepted procedures for the evaluation of the structural capacity of pavements [1]. NDT enables the use of a mechanistic approach for pavement design and rehabilitation because in situ material properties can be backcalculated from the measured eld data through appropriate analysis techniques [2]. In order to backcalculate reliable moduli, it is essential to accomplish several deection tests at dierent locations along the highway sections having the same layer thicknesses [1]. However, this is not enough to backcalculate pavement layer moduli. Only if deection basin is realistically modeled, elastic
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 246 211 1216; fax: +90 246 237 0859. E-mail addresses: msaltan@mmf.sdu.edu.tr (M. Saltan), smercan@fef.sdu.edu.tr (S. Saltan), sahiner@fef.sdu.edu.tr (A. S ahiner). 0950-0618/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2006.07.004
*

pavement layer moduli obtained from backcalculation results will reect actual behavior. In deection methods, commercially available devices are the Dynaect, road rater and falling weight deectometer (FWD). The most common property found by NDT is the elastic modulus of each pavement layer. In recent years, one of the most important and promising research elds has been Heuristics from Nature, an area utilizing some analogies with natural or social systems and using them to derive non-deterministic heuristic methods in order to obtain better satisfactory results. Fuzzy logic approach (FLA) is among the heuristic methods [3]. The use of FLA in simulation has been increasing during the recent years. One of the major reasons for this is that FLA belongs to a class of probabilistic search methods that strike excellent balance between exploration and exploitation of the search space. In this respect, FLA has been successfully applied to optimization problems,

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transportation problems, etc. [4]. FLA is especially appropriate to tackle the deection behavior modeling for exible pavements. Its advantages can be appeared completely use of the ability to learn complex non-linear relationships, and to nd the optimum solutions. Pavement life can be determined depending on the design axle weight and its passage number. Thus, the load carrying capacity of the exible pavement can be determined by comparing computed life and design life which helps the maintenance and rehabilitation applications. The application of fuzzy methodology is performed for the FWD non-destructive testing. The main purpose of this paper is to estimate the surface deection behavior of highway exible pavements from FWD applications by using fuzzy logic methodology. 2. FWD testing system In order to simulate the truck loading on the pavement, a circular plate is dropped onto the pavement from a set of heights. The height is adjusted according to the desired load level. Underneath the circular plate a rubber pad is mounted to prevent shock loading. Seven geophones (the number of geophones can change) are generally mounted on the trailer. When the vertical load is applied on the pavement, the geophones collect the data which is converted into the real deections. The Benkelman beam and Dynaect, which are mostly used in the developing countries, only give information for underneath the circular plate, whereas the FWD can provide additional information, for example, six other points away from the circular plate. The FWD is a trailer-mounted device which has been established world-wide as one of the most eective tools for measuring deections for pavement evaluation purposes (Fig. 1). There are many types of FWDs which can apply the same loading. The frequencies of loading change between 0.025 and 0.030 s; the applied loads vary between 6.7 and 156 kN. The loads are generally applied in a sinusoidal form [57]. The loading time of 0.030 s represents the wheel loading moving at a speed of 30 km/h and 0.023 mm deviations can be seen from the FWD measurements [8]. A crew can carry out 200300 FWD measurements in a day.

3. Interpretation of FWD measurements A typical deection bowl obtained from the FWD loading is shown in Fig. 2. The maximum deection is obtained underneath the circular plate and points which are away from the circular load application point have smaller deections. When the FWD loading is applied, the load and the deections due to the FWD loading are known. However, for the structural analysis, the material layers and thicknesses must be known. Layer thickness can be determined from the highway plans (if available). If the plans are not available, then using either drilling or geophysical methods the layer thickness can be determined [9]. Therefore, there are only two unknowns in the problem: the elastic modulus and the Poissons ratio of each layer. Generally, the eect of Poissons ratio is negligible and can be ignored in the pavement analysis. Therefore, constant values of the Poissons ratios are generally assigned to the layers. In recent years, the fuzzy logic approach has been used to overcome the complex non-linear relations. Non-destructive testing (NDT) enables the use of a mechanistic approach to pavement design and rehabilitation since the in situ material properties can be backcalculated from the measured eld data through appropriate analysis techniques. Backcalculating the layer moduli from pavement deection bowls is a promising method of determining the performance of in-service pavements [10,2]. The evaluation of material properties of existing in-service pavements is a fundamental problem in pavement engineering. Until now, highway agencies all over the world used traditional simple methods such as linear elastic theory and equivalent layer thickness. Using these simple methods, it is impossible to evaluate the material properties of in-service pavements in a realistic manner. However, the fuzzy logic approach is highly ecient in modeling the complicated pavement behavior without

Fig. 1. A non-destructive testing application.

Fig. 2. Typical deection bowl obtained from a FWD loading.

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using non-linear formulations. Nowadays, the fuzzy logic approach is increasingly used paralleling new engineering technologies.
1.0

Zero

V.Small

Small

Medium

Large

V.Large

4. Fuzzy logic approach The concept of fuzzy sets was introduced by Zadeh [11] who pioneered the development of fuzzy logic instead of Aristotelian logic of two possibilities only. His famous paper Fuzzy sets in the Journal of Information and Control provided a new mathematical tool which enables us to describe and handle vague or ambiguous notions such as a set of all real numbers which are much greater than 1, a set of beautiful women, or the of tall men. Since then, fuzzy set theory has been rapidly developed by Zadeh himself and numerous researches, and an increasing number of successful real applications of this theory in a wide variety of unexpected elds have been appearing. The main idea of fuzzy set theory is quite intuitive and natural: instead of determining the exact boundaries as in an ordinary set, a fuzzy set allows no sharply dened boundaries because of generalization of a characteristic function to a membership function [12]. Many researchers, especially those in positions to develop models of a physical process, understand that we lack complete information in solving problems. Some of the information we have about a particular problem might be judgmental, perhaps a visceral reaction on the part of the modeller rather than hard quantitative information [13,14]. The possible values of linguistic variable are linguistic terms, mostly referred to terms. These terms are linguistic interpretations of technical gures. The degree to which the value of a technical gure satises the linguistic concept of the term of a linguistic variable is called a degree of membership. For a continuous variable, this degree is expressed by a mathematical function called a membership function (MF). Usually, membership functions can be drawn as shown in Fig. 3. On the other hand, the basic elements of each fuzzy logic system are rules, fuzzier, inference engine, and defuzzier (see Fig. 4). The input and output variables are divided into a number of subsets with simple triangular fuzzy membership functions. For example, in the case of two inputs X1 and X2 with m subsets each, the rule base takes the form of an output Yk(k = 1, 2, . . ., m2). If there are two input variables as X1 with very small and small fuzzy subsets and X2 with medium and large subsets then consequently there will be four rules as: R1 : IF X 1 is very small and X 2 is medium THEN Y 1 ; R2 : IF X 1 is very small and X 2 is large THEN Y 2 ; R3 : IF X 1 is small and X 2 is medium THEN Y 3 ; R4 : IF X 1 is small and X 2 is large THEN Y 4 : 1
0.8

Membership Degree

0.6

0.4

0.2 0.0 2 4 6 8 10

Fig. 3. Fuzzy subset membership functions.

Input

Fuzzifier

Defuzzifier

Crisp output

Rules

Inference

Fig. 4. Basic elements of a fuzzy logic.

In the fuzzy inference method, sets of corresponding input and output measurements are provided to the fuzzy system [15]. Once proper weighting has been assigned to each rule, the implication method is implemented. A consequent is a fuzzy set represented by a membership function, which weights appropriately the linguistic characteristics that are attributed to it. The consequent is reshaped using a function associated with the antecedent (a single number). The input for the implication process is a single number given by the antecedent, and the output is a fuzzy set. Implication is implemented for each rule. Weights can be specied by typing in a desired number between zero and one [15]. For each triggered rule, the membership degree for inputs is computed and these are multiplied to give the weight Wk to be assigned to the corresponding output Yk. Hence, the weighted average of the outputs from four rules gives a single output, y, as: P4 k 1 W k Y k y P 2 4 k 1 W k Thus, once the rule base is set up, values of the output can be computed from Eq. (2) for any combination of input variables fuzzy subsets. A very common method in deciding about the fuzzy rule base is to use sample data and derive the necessary rule base by the fuzzy infer-

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ence procedure. This involves computing the weight of each rule triggered, accumulating weights and outputs for each rule and nally computing the weighted output for each rule [16]. The literature also contains a large number of dierent defuzzication procedures. The nal value chosen is most often either the value corresponding to the highest grade of membership or the coordinate of the center of gravity (centroid) [17,18]. In the study, the centroid defuzzication method was used, where the crisp value of the output variable is computed by nding the center of area below the combined membership function. In other words, the weighted average of the activated output fuzzy sets is calculated and assigned to the crisp output value. 5. Application The use of fuzzy logic approach provides a basic way for the estimation of surface deections under the dynamical trac loading. Fuzzy logic modeling was used to build a model for the estimation of surface deection values based on important inuencing factors. The main goal of the surface deection estimation against dynamical loading is to plan highway maintenance and rehabilitation program. Determining the surface deection behavior, highway agencies schedule the future highway maintenance and rehabilitation program. Highway exible pavements have some characteristics such as layer elastic modulus, layer Poisson ratio, layer thickness, and surface deections against dynamical trafc loading. Among these characteristics, surface deection values are especially important for evaluating the structural capacity of the highway exible pavements. Loading conditions are the fundamental variable in occurrence of the surface deections. So, seven load values and three surface deections are selected as input and output variables, respectively. For the application of fuzzy logic approach, dynamical loading and deection values are rst fuzzied into fuzzy subsets so as to cover the whole range of changes. A typical exible pavement in which wearing course, base layer and subgrade exist was chosen for the study (Fig. 5). In this study, a model is established which estimates the surface deection values of a exible pavement from dierent loading conditions

Load 1 Load 2 Load 3 Load 4 Load 5 Load 6 Load 7

Fig. 6. General structure of fuzzy logic model.

Deflection 1 Rule Base Deflection 2 Deflection 3

WEARING COURSE

BASE LAYER

SUBGRADE
Fig. 5. A typical exible pavement used in the study.

using fuzzy logic. The general structure of the model is shown in Fig. 6. Seven dierent load applications as input and three surface deections positioned at dierent radial locations as output variables were used. Data sets included 114 dierent data congurations. These data sets are obtained from the earlier studies of the rst author [9]. The rule structure is designed based on how the experts interpret the characteristics of the variables of the system. Fuzzy logic shows experience and preference through its membership functions. The fuzzy subsets dened for the input variables are depicted in Fig. 7. It can be observed that the axially trac loading may be dened in a scale that consists of the range 612 tons, while for the surface deection a scale that consists of the range 0.150.60 cm was used. Herein, seven fuzzy subsets, namely Very-Low, Low, LowMedium, Medium, MediumHigh, High and Very-High were considered for the input and output variables to have triangle membership. In the model, dierent membership functions are formed for each load input and these functions are trained using existing data. Membership functions for load applications in Fig. 7 and for three surface deection locations in Figs. 810 are given. Deection fuzzy subsets are also labelled as Very-Low, Low, LowMedium, Medium, MediumHigh, High and Very-High. A rule base is constituted for membership functions (Fig. 11). It is possible to write down a lot of fuzzy rules, but the majority of these are not valid if the relationship between the load applications and surface deection values is taken into consider. Once the fuzzy rule base inference machine is set up, it is straightforward to adjust the fuzzy partition on the computer until the best t is obtained. After training period, the fuzzy rule base is obtained for the prediction of outputs. Fuzzy rule base is the main tool for prediction. Fuzzy rule base is used for the load applications and three dierent surface deections subsets as,

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Very Low 1

Low

Low-Medium

Medium

Medium-High

High

Very High

0.5

0 6 7 8 9 Input variable "Load" 10 11 12

Fig. 7. Membership function of loading applications.

Very Low 1

Low

Low-Medium

Medium

Medium-High

High

Very High

0.5

0 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 Output variable "Deflection 1" 0.55 0.6

Fig. 8. Membership function of Deection 1.

Very Low 1

Low

Low-Medium

Medium

Medium-High

High

Very High

0.5

0 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 Output variable "Deflection 2" 0.5 0.55 0.6

Fig. 9. Membership function of Deection 2.

If (load is Very-Low) then (Deection 1 is Very-Low) and (Deection 2 is Very-Low) and (Deection 3 is Very-Low); If (load is Low) then (Deection 1 is Low) and (Deection 2 is Low) and (Deection 3 is Low);

If (load is LowMedium) then (Deection 1 is Low Medium) and (Deection 2 is LowMedium) and (Deection 3 is LowMedium); If (load is Medium) then (Deection 1 is Medium) and (Deection 2 is Medium) and (Deection 3 is Medium);

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Very Low 1

Low

Low-Medium

Medium

Medium-High

High

Very High

0.5

0 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 Output variable "Deflection 3"
Fig. 10. Membership function of Deection 3.

Fig. 11. Rule base.

Fig. 12. Sample predict of model.

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If (load is MediumHigh) then (Deection 1 is Medium High) and (Deection 2 is MediumHigh) and (Deection 3 is MediumHigh); If (load is High) then (Deection 1 is High) and (Deection 2 is High) and (Deection 3 is High); If (Load is Very-High) then (Deection 1 is Very-High) and (Deection 2 is Very-High) and (Deection 3 is Very-High).

Fig. 12 is an example for triggering the rules according to numerical input data. Surface deection values can be estimated without any FWD application by using fuzzy logic approach for certain pavement sections. The reliance on the obtained result will be enhanced if sucient and representative training data are available. The nal results in the form of defuzzied deection values

Deflection 1
0.7 0.6 R 2 = 0,9942

Fuzzy Estimation

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Measured Values
Fig. 13. Measured and fuzzy model predications for Deection 1.

Deflection 2
0.7 0.6 R 2 = 0,9942

Fuzzy Estimation

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Measured Values
Fig. 14. Measured and fuzzy model predications for Deection 2.

Deflection 3
0.5 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 R 2 = 0,9923

Fuzzy Estimation

Measured Values
Fig. 15. Measured and fuzzy model predications for Deection 3.

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14 12 Load Applications 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 0.2 0.4 Deflections 0.6 0.8 Measured Values Fuzzy Estimations

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Fig. 16. Measured deection values and fuzzy estimations against loading.

estimations against the measured values are represented in Figs. 1316. Fuzzy logic estimations show very good performance between fuzzy-estimated and measured deection values. The fuzzy estimation and measured deection values against the load applications are presented in Fig. 16. The fuzzy model is able to predict the deection behavior against dynamical loading. The new approach can capture the non-linearity of surface deection behavior. The benets in modeling with fuzzy logic approach are widely recognized by the scientic community. The experience described in this paper reects to nd an alternative approach in evaluating the structural capacity of exible pavements. Based on the data base, extremely realistic results were obtained from the study. Dierent pavement parameters as elastic modulus, Poisson ratio and layer thickness can be added to the developed fuzzy logic model for obtaining more realistic results. 6. Conclusion Although fuzzy systems are numerical approaches, they convert the linguistic control strategy based on the observed behavior and knowledge into an automatic control strategy. However, the fuzzy approach does not eliminate the burden of knowledge acquisition. The major problems in the construction of a fuzzy system are the determination of the parameters of membership functions of the input/output variables. Prediction of surface deection values from the dynamical loading application provides an ecient way. This paper presents the development of a fuzzy logic system for predicting the surface deection values located the different radial locations for exible pavements that is of great signicance for the highway authorities. Surface deection values of a exible pavement are estimated by using the developed model from the dierent loading conditions. The usefulness of the fuzzy logic approach is examined in determining the deection behavior of exible pavements against the dynamical surface loading. The fuzzy logic system developed using this

approach gives very satisfactory results. It can be used to predict the surface deections against dynamical trac loading for exible highway pavements. Based on the obtained results, it may be concluded that the proposed fuzzy logic model can assist and guide to meet highway pavement engineer requests. Fuzzy logic approach can be eectively used for the deection behavior of the exible pavements subjected to dynamical loading. It is shown that the proposed fuzzy system can be used to imitate the measured surface deection values. In addition, if the parameters as the elastic modulus and the layer thickness are added to the data base, more realistically results can be obtained. References
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