Engineering Computations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the feasibility of committee neural network (CNN) theory for the improvement of accuracy and consistency of the neural network model on the estimation of preconsolidation pressure from the field piezocone measurements.

Design/methodology/approach – In this study, CNN theory is introduced to improve the initial weight dependency of the neural network model on the prediction of preconsolidation pressure of soft clay from a piezocone test result. It was found that the proposed CNN model can improve the initial weight dependency of the NN model and provide a more consistent and precise inference result than existing NN models, as well as empirical and theoretical models.

Findings – It was found that the CNN overcomes the initial weight dependency of the single neural network model. Various committees of the single multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) were tested. It was found that if eight single MLPs, which have the same structure but have been trained with a different initial weight and bias, are accumulated in the committee with the same weighting factor, any variation on the prediction of the preconsolidation pressure from the piezocone test result can be simply and successfully eliminated.

Originality/value – In recent years, ANN has been found to be a powerful theory for analyzing complex relationships involving a multitude of variables, on many geotechnical applications. However, single MLP, when repeatedly trained on the same patterns, tends to reach different minima of the objective function each time and hence give a different set of neuron weights, because the solution is not unique for noisy data, as in most geotechnical problems. The authors observed that a committee neural network system is able to provide improved performance compared with a single optimal neural network.