Influence of soil arching mobilization on localized surcharge identification in a shallow trapdoor system
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Localized surcharge identification above shallow buried structures depends on soil-arching state and the reliability of sparse monitoring channels. We examine an active trapdoor at H / B = 1.5 using three pre-displacement states and five observation sets combining surface settlements and support-reaction features. A 117-response plane-strain Mohr–Coulomb finite-element database was divided into training, development, independent numerical evaluation, and independent numerical confirmation sets. State-specific quadratic-trend Matérn-5/2 Gaussian-process surrogates were trained on the training set, while channel-wise discrepancy was calibrated on the development set and applied to the independent sets. Training-set leave-one-out cross-validation underestimated the out-of-sample discrepancy of the signed reaction moment. In the independent evaluation set, its normalized forward root-mean-square error was 8.56 and its mean contribution to the inverse objective at the true parameters was 62.7%. Development calibration reduced these values to 1.30 and 11.8%, respectively, eliminating the associated opposite-boundary solutions. With the calibrated scale, median combined errors across the five observation sets ranged from 0.302 to 0.359. The reaction-distribution scale improved width recovery in some states but provided no general combined-error advantage. In the confirmation set, median combined errors ranged from 0.493 to 0.511; the same feature reduced median width error from 47.35% to 35.14%, although 16 of 24 estimates still reached a parameter boundary. Observation design should therefore account jointly for arching state, parameter-specific information, and surrogate discrepancy. Width recovery remains limited in sparsely covered parts of the nominal load domain.
Source: Computers and Geotechnics
Authors: Qizhi Chen, Chenhao Pei, Feng Lu, Qi Zhang, Baoping Zou
Language: English
Subfield: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,640
OpenAlex ID: W7222832850