• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.241-251
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• 2020

Due to the undeniable importance of approximating the concrete compressive strength (CSC) in civil engineering, this paper focuses on presenting four novel optimizations of multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network, namely artificial bee colony (ABC-MLP), grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA-MLP), shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA-MLP), and salp swarm algorithm (SSA-MLP) for predicting this crucial parameter. The used dataset consists of 103 rows of information concerning seven influential parameters (cement, slag, water, fly ash, superplasticizer, fine aggregate, and coarse aggregate). In this work, the best-fitted complexity of each ensemble is determined by a population-based sensitivity analysis. The GOA distinguished its self by the least complexity (population size = 50) and emerged as the second time-effective optimizer. Referring to the prediction results, all tested algorithms are able to construct reliable networks. However, the SSA (Correlation = 0.9652 and Error = 1.3939) and GOA (Correlation = 0.9629 and Error = 1.3922) performed more accurately than ABC (Correlation = 0.7060 and Error = 4.0161) and SFLA (Correlation = 0.8890 and Error = 2.5480). Therefore, the SSA-MLP and GOA-MLP can be promising alternatives to laboratorial and traditional CSC evaluative methods.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.77-90
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• 2024

Waste foundry sand (WFS) is the waste product that cause environmental hazards. WFS can be used as a partial replacement of cement or fine aggregates in concrete. A database comprising 234 compressive strength tests of concrete fabricated with WFS is used. To construct the machine learning-based prediction models, the water-to-cement ratio, WFS replacement percentage, WFS-to-cement content ratio, and fineness modulus of WFS were considered as the model's inputs, and the compressive strength of concrete is set as the model's output. A base extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model together with two hybrid XGBoost models mixed with the tunicate swarm algorithm (TSA) and the salp swarm algorithm (SSA) were applied. The role of TSA and SSA is to identify the optimum values of XGBoost hyperparameters to obtain the higher performance. The results of these hybrid techniques were compared with the results of the base XGBoost model in order to investigate and justify the implementation of optimisation algorithms. The results showed that the hybrid XGBoost models are faster and more accurate compared to the base XGBoost technique. The XGBoost-SSA model shows superior performance compared to previously published works in the literature, offering a reduced system error rate. Although the WFS-to-cement ratio is significant, the WFS replacement percentage has a smaller influence on the compressive strength of concrete. To improve the compressive strength of concrete fabricated with WFS, the simultaneous consideration of the water-to-cement ratio and fineness modulus of WFS is recommended.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.263-275
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• 2020

This research is dedicated to slope stability analysis using novel intelligent models. By coupling a neural network with spotted hyena optimizer (SHO), salp swarm algorithm (SSA), shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA), and league champion optimization algorithm (LCA) metaheuristic algorithms, four predictive ensembles are built for predicting the factor of safety (FOS) of a single-layer cohesive soil slope. The data used to develop the ensembles are provided from a vast finite element analysis. After creating the proposed models, it was observed that the best population size for the SHO, SSA, SFLA, and LCA is 300, 400, 400, and 200, respectively. Evaluation of the results showed that the combination of metaheuristic and neural approaches offers capable tools for estimating the FOS. However, the SSA (error = 0.3532 and correlation = 0.9937), emerged as the most reliable optimizer, followed by LCA (error = 0.5430 and correlation = 0.9843), SFLA (error = 0.8176 and correlation = 0.9645), and SHO (error = 2.0887 and correlation = 0.8614). Due to the high accuracy of the SSA in properly adjusting the computational parameters of the neural network, the corresponding FOS predictive formula is presented to be used as a fast yet accurate substitution for traditional methods.