Global Optimization of General Failure Surfaces in Slope Analysis by Hybrid Simulated Annealing

Dear Dr Duever, I am submitting this document, entitled " Global Optimization of General Failure Surfaces in Slope Analysis by Hybrid Simulated Annealing " as my 2B Work Report for Rocscience, Inc. My project investigated the efficiency of a hybrid simulated annealing (HSA) method for finding the minima (critical failure surfaces and factors of safety) of slope stability equations. The HSA combines a Very Fast Simulated Annealing (VFSA) and a Local Monte-Carlo (LMC) search, the latter being an optimization algorithm designed specifically for solving slope stability problems. This work is an extension as well as a generalization of the project from my summer work-term (2008), also undertaken at Rocscience. During both terms, I worked under the supervision of Dr. Brent Corkum, software development manager at Rocscience. I implemented the simulated annealing algorithm as a new optimization method in SLIDE 5.0, a slope stability analysis program developed by Rocscience. In addition to learning professional C++ and principles of object oriented programming, I had the opportunity to study the theoretical and practical aspects of non-convex optimization, especially the performance of stochastic methods when used on multi-modal functions. I also learned soil mechanics and slope stability principles. This report was written entirely by me and has not received any previous academic credit at Rocscience or the University of Waterloo. The current work will be published in an engineering journal. I would like to thank Dr Brent Corkum for his excellent supervision and Dr Reginald Hammah for invaluable references and discussion. I also thank Dr Jim Hazzard, Damir Valiulin and Jeremy Smith for their programming tips and continued help during the program development. I would also like to thank Igor Pashutinski for carefully revising the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank Dr John Curran, Dr Thamer Yacoub, and Ms Lesley-Ann Foulds for helpful discussions.