Invariance-Based Approach: General Methods and Pavement Engineering Case Study

Authors

Edgar Daniel Rodriguez Velasquez, University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Olga Kosheleva, University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

6-2021

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-20-122a

Published in International Journal of General Systems, 2021, DOI: 10.1080/03081079.2021.1953005.

Originally appeared as: Symmetry-Based Approach: General Methods and Pavement Engineering Case Study

Abstract

In many application areas such as pavement engineering, the phenomena are complex, and as a result, we do not have first-principle models describing the corresponding dependencies. Luckily, in many such areas, there is a lot of empirical data and, based on this data, many useful empirical dependencies have been found. The problem is that since many of these dependencies do not have a theoretical explanation, practitioners are often hesitant to use them: there have been many cases when an empirical formula stops being valid when circumstances change. To make the corresponding empirical formulas more reliable, it is therefore desirable to look for theoretical foundations of these formulas. In this paper, we show that many of such dependencies can be naturally explained by using symmetries and invariances. We illustrate this approach on the example of pavement engineering, but the approach is very general, and can be applied to other systems as well.