ABSTRACT
The application of the Barcelona Basic Model (BBM) to practical geotechnical problems requires the selection of accurate parameter values based on laboratory or field tests. This is often an arduous task due to lack of good quality experimental data, cost of lengthy laboratory testing campaigns, difficulties in the interpretation of test results and unavailability of well-established calibration methods. In-situ techniques are usually preferred to laboratory tests as they offer a quicker and less expensive alternative while overcoming limitations associated to the potential disturbance of the samples retrieved from the field. In this context, the paper presents some preliminary work carried out within a wider project to devise a methodology for the definition of constitutive model parameter values through the back analysis of pressuremeter tests. In particular, a parallel asynchronous differential evolution algorithm using a client-server model is proposed for parameter calibration in BBM. A validation example is also presented, which demonstrates the ability of the algorithm to identify up to eight parameters simultaneously.
