Subgrade reaction modulus (Ks) is one of the main factors in evaluating engineering properties of soils for structural calculations and operations. So, many studies have been performed on the effect of other soil geotechnical parameters on it. One is the effect of soil grains shape on engineering properties of soils, especially Ks. The aim of the present research is to evaluate the effect of soil grains shape on Ks for coarse-grained soils of the west of Mashhad, Iran. For this purpose, 20 PLTs were performed on coarse-grained soils of the west of Mashhad and Ks amounts were determined. Then, flakiness and elongation of the samples measured and changes of Ks by soil grain shape were evaluated. The results showed the strength dependency of Ks to grain forms which an increase in flakiness and elongation indices leads to a decrease in Ks. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce Ks estimated form empirical relationships for flaky and elongated soils. So, by writing a genetic algorithm-based program to find the optimal relationship between the grain shape and the subgrade reaction coefficient, a valid equation for correcting the results from previous empirical equations was presented.
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