• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.513-522
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• 2022

Due to the importance of accurate analysis of bearing capacity in civil engineering projects, this paper studies the efficiency of two novel metaheuristic-based models for this objective. To this end, black hole algorithm (BHA) and multi-verse optimizer (MVO) are synthesized with an artificial neural network (ANN) to build the proposed hybrid models. Based on the settlement of a two-layered soil (and a shallow footing) system, the stability values (SV) of 0 and 1 (indicating the stability and failure, respectively) are set as the targets. Each model predicted the SV for 901 stages. The results indicated that the BHA and MVO can increase the accuracy (i.e., the area under the receiving operating characteristic curve) of the ANN from 94.0% to 96.3 and 97.2% in analyzing the SV pattern. Moreover, the prediction accuracy rose from 93.1% to 94.4 and 95.0%. Also, a comparison between the ANN's error decreased by the BHA and MVO (7.92% vs. 18.08% in the training phase and 6.28% vs. 13.62% in the testing phase) showed that the MVO is a more efficient optimizer. Hence, the suggested MVO-ANN can be used as a reliable approach for the practical estimation of bearing capacity.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.401-419
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• 2022

A novel hybrid extreme machine learning-multiverse optimizer (ELM-MVO) framework is proposed to predict the liquefaction phenomenon in seismically excited tunnel lining inside the sand lens. The MVO is applied to optimize the input weights and biases of the ELM algorithm to improve its efficiency. The tunnel located inside the liquefied sand lens is also evaluated under various near- and far-field earthquakes. The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method to predict the liquefaction event against the conventional extreme machine learning (ELM) and artificial neural network (ANN) algorithms. The outcomes also indicate that the possibility of liquefaction in sand lenses under far-field seismic excitations is much less than the near-field excitations, even with a small magnitude. Hence, tunnels designed in geographical areas where seismic excitations are more likely to be generated in the near area should be specially prepared. The sand lens around the tunnel also has larger settlements due to liquefaction.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.677-691
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• 2022

Water cycle algorithm (WCA) has been a very effective optimization technique for complex engineering problems. This study employs the WCA for simultaneous prediction of heating load (L_H) and cooling load (L_C) in residential buildings. This algorithm is responsible for optimally tuning a neural network (NN). Utilizing 614 records, the behavior of the L_H and L_C is explored and the captured knowledge is then used to predict for 154 unanalyzed building conditions. Since the WCA is a population-based algorithm, different numbers of the searching agents were tested to find the most optimum configuration. It was observed that the best solution is discovered by 500 agents. A comparison with five newly-developed benchmark optimizers, namely equilibrium optimizer (EO), multi-tracker optimization algorithm (MTOA), slime mould algorithm (SMA), multi-verse optimizer (MVO), and electromagnetic field optimization (EFO) revealed that the WCANN predicts the desired parameters with considerably larger accuracy. Obtained root mean square errors (1.4866, 2.1296, 2.8279, 2.5727, 2.5337, and 2.3029 for the L_H and 2.1767, 2.6459, 3.1821, 2.9732, 2.9616, and 2.6890 for the L_C) indicated that the most reliable prediction was presented by the proposed model. The EFONN, however, provided a more time-effective solution. Lastly, an explicit predictive formula was elicited from the WCANN.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.195-207
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• 2022

Computational drawbacks associated with regular predictive models have motivated engineers to use hybrid techniques in dealing with complex engineering tasks like simulating the compressive strength of concrete (CSC). This study evaluates the efficiency of tree potential metaheuristic schemes, namely shuffled complex evolution (SCE), multi-verse optimizer (MVO), and beetle antennae search (BAS) for optimizing the performance of a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) system. The models are fed by the information of 1030 concrete specimens (where the amount of cement, blast furnace slag (BFS), fly ash (FA1), water, superplasticizer (SP), coarse aggregate (CA), and fine aggregate (FA2) are taken as independent factors). The results of the ensembles are compared to unreinforced MLP to examine improvements resulted from the incorporation of the SCE, MVO, and BAS. It was shown that these algorithms can considerably enhance the training and prediction accuracy of the MLP. Overall, the proposed models are capable of presenting an early, inexpensive, and reliable prediction of the CSC. Due to the higher accuracy of the BAS-based model, a predictive formula is extracted from this algorithm.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.65-91
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• 2024

The use of five optimization techniques for the prediction of a strength-based concrete mixture's best-fit model is examined in this work. Five optimization techniques are utilized for this purpose: Slime Mold Algorithm (SMA), Black Hole Algorithm (BHA), Multi-Verse Optimizer (MVO), Vortex Search (VS), and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA). MATLAB employs a hybrid learning strategy to train an artificial neural network that combines least square estimation with backpropagation. Thus, 72 samples are utilized as training datasets and 31 as testing datasets, totaling 103. The multi-layer perceptron (MLP) is used to analyze all data, and results are verified by comparison. For training datasets in the best-fit models of SMA-MLP, BHA-MLP, MVO-MLP, VS-MLP, and WOA-MLP, the statistical indices of coefficient of determination (R²) in training phase are 0.9603, 0.9679, 0.9827, 0.9841 and 0.9770, and in testing phase are 0.9567, 0.9552, 0.9594, 0.9888 and 0.9695 respectively. In addition, the best-fit structures for training for SMA, BHA, MVO, VS, and WOA (all combined with multilayer perceptron, MLP) are achieved when the term population size was modified to 450, 500, 250, 150, and 500, respectively. Among all the suggested options, VS could offer a stronger prediction network for training MLP.