Application of Shuffled Complex Evolution Optimization Approach to Concrete Pavement Backanalysis

This paper focuses on the development of a new backcalculation method for concrete pavements based on a hybrid evolutionary global optimization algorithm, namely Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE). Evolutionary optimization algorithms are ideally suited for intrinsically multi-modal, non-convex, and discontinuous realworld problems such as pavement backcalculation because of their ability to explore very large and complex search spaces and locate the globally optimal solution using a parallel search mechanism as opposed to a point-by-point search mechanism employed by traditional optimization algorithms. Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE), a type of evolutionary optimization algorithms based on the tradeoff of exploration and exploitation, has been proved to be an efficient method for many global optimization problems and in some cases it does not suffer the difficulties encountered by other evolutionary computation techniques. The SCE optimization approach is hybridized with a Neural Networks (NN) surrogate forward pavement response model to enable rapid computation of global or near-global pavement layer moduli solutions. It is shown that the developed approach is robust and produces consistent results.