• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.509-527
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• 2024

Bonding carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates have been extensively employed in the restoration of steel constructions. In addition to the mechanical properties of the CFRP, the bond strength (P_U) between the CFRP and steel is often important in the eventual strengthened performance. Nonetheless, the bond behavior of the CFRP-steel (CS) interface is exceedingly complicated, with multiple failure causes, giving the P_U challenging to forecast, and the CFRP-enhanced steel structure is unsteady. In just this case, appropriate methods were established by hybridized Random Forests (RF) and support vector regression (SVR) approaches on assembled CS single-shear experiment data to foresee the P_U of CS, in which a recently established optimization algorithm named Aquila optimizer (AO) was used to tune the RF and SVR hyperparameters. In summary, the practical novelty of the article lies in its development of a reliable and efficient method for predicting bond strength at the CS interface, which has significant implications for structural rehabilitation, design optimization, risk mitigation, cost savings, and decision support in engineering practice. Moreover, the Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test was performed to depict each parameter's impact on the target. The order of parameter importance was t_c> L_c > E_A > t_A > E_c > b_c > f_c > f_A from largest to smallest by 0.9345 > 0.8562 > 0.79354 > 0.7289 > 0.6531 > 0.5718 > 0.4307 > 0.3657. In three training, testing, and all data phases, the superiority of AO - RF with respect to AO - SVR and MARS was obvious. In the training stage, the values of R² and VAF were slightly similar with a tiny superiority of AO - RF compared to AO - SVR with R² equal to 0.9977 and VAF equal to 99.772, but large differences with results of MARS.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.645-666
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• 2023

Due to the steadily declining supply of natural coarse aggregates, the concrete industry has shifted to substituting coarse aggregates generated from byproducts and industrial waste. Oil palm shell is a substantial waste product created during the production of palm oil (OPS). When considering the usage of OPSC, building engineers must consider its uniaxial compressive strength (UCS). Obtaining UCS is expensive and time-consuming, machine learning may help. This research established five innovative hybrid AI algorithms to predict UCS. Aquila optimizer (AO) is used with methods to discover optimum model parameters. Considered models are artificial neural network (AO - ANN), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (AO - ANFIS), support vector regression (AO - SVR), random forest (AO - RF), and extreme gradient boosting (AO - XGB). To achieve this goal, a dataset of OPS-produced concrete specimens was compiled. The outputs depict that all five developed models have justifiable accuracy in UCS estimation process, showing the remarkable correlation between measured and estimated UCS and models' usefulness. All in all, findings depict that the proposed AO - XGB model performed more suitable than others in predicting UCS of OPSC (with R², RMSE, MAE, VAF and A_15-index at 0.9678, 1.4595, 1.1527, 97.6469, and 0.9077). The proposed model could be utilized in construction engineering to ensure enough mechanical workability of lightweight concrete and permit its safe usage for construction aims.