Page 218 - Numerical Analysis and Modelling in Geomechanics

BACK ANALYSIS OF GEOTECHNICAL PROBLEMS 199
of complex constitutive models, the extension to dynamic problems and studies
oriented to probabilistic approaches.
An attempt in this last direction has been discussed here, with reference to a
Bayesian calibration technique, but also other approaches, such as the Kalman
filtering technique, appear to be quite promising. In fact, they exploit both the a
priori knowledge of the problem at hand and the sequential evolution of the
experimental information during the excavation/construction works.

Acknowledgements
The examples presented in this paper are part of studies supported by the
Ministry of the University and Research of the Italian Government. They are
based the pioneering researches of G.Maier and S.Sakurai on structural and
geotechnical back analysis. Their scientific guidance is gratefully acknowledged.

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