TR073: Selection and Design of Temporary Retaining Walls Using Expert Systems

There are many projects that need Temporary Retaining Walls (TRW). Special techniques are needed to design and select these walls. Specialists (experts) should design and select the Temporary Retaining Walls. There arc not so many specialists. They arc always very busy. Sometimes they can not work perfectly because of a lack of time. This situation is very dangerous. To design and select TRW speedily, effectively, and correctly is very important. To do so successfully brings success to projects.

Expert systems are absolutely needed for selection and design of TRW. There are many barriers to producing an expert system. There arc very few examples. Trying to produce expert systems has just started recently. No concrete concepts exists of a whole system for selection and design of TRW because there are no regular procedures to identify them. It always depends on the conditions of each site.

The concepts of a whole system are considered in making useful expert systems. For wall type selection, the real procedure is flexible, fluid, and ambiguous. It was very hard to create wall type selection expert systems. Some concrete ideas are proposed. A fuzzy theory is applied to realize this idea. A prototype model is based on the ideas. Critical problems to produce expert systems arc identified.