H MolaAbasi - Faculty of Engineering, Babol University of Technology
F Kalantary - School of Civil Engineering, Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology. Corresponding author
M Salahi - Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, University of Guilan

Shear wave velocity (Vs) is a basic engineering soil property implemented in evaluating the soil shear modulus. Due to a few limitations, sometimes it is preferable to determine Vs indirectly by in situ tests, such as standard penetration test (SPT). However, inaccuracies in measurement or estimation of the influencing parameters have always been a major concern, and thus various statistical approaches have been proposed to subdue the effect of such inaccuracies in predictions of future events. In this article, an innovative approach based on robust optimization has been utilized to enumerate the effect of such uncertainties. In order to assess the merits of the proposed approach a database containing 326 data points of case histories from Adapazari, Turkey were gathered from renowned references. The identification technique used in this article is based on the robust counterpart of the least square problem which is a second order cone problem and is efficiently solved by interior point method. A definition of uncertainty based on frobenius norm of the data is introduced and examined against correlation coefficient of various correlation parameters and optimum values are determined. Finally the results of new correlation are compared with those utilizing a commonly used statistical method and the advantages and possibilities of the proposed correlation over the conventional method are highlighted.

Shear wave velocity; Standard penetration test; Least squares; Uncertainties; Robust optimization; Second order cone