Artificial Neural Network with a Cross-Validation Technique to Predict the Material Design of Eco-Friendly Engineered Geopolymer Composites

Abstract

A material-tailored special concrete composite that uses a synthetic fiber to make the concrete ductile and imposes strain-hardening characteristics with eco-friendly ingredients is known as an “engineered geopolymer composite (EGC)”. Mix design of special concrete is always tedious, particularly without standards. Researchers used several artificial intelligence tools to analyze and design the special concrete. This paper attempts to design the material EGC through an artificial neural network with a cross-validation technique to achieve the desired compressive and tensile strength. A database was formulated with seven mix-design influencing factors collected from the literature. The five best artificial neural network (ANN) models were trained and analyzed. A gradient descent momentum and adaptive learning rate backpropagation (GDX)–based ANN was developed to cross-validate those five best models. Upon regression analysis, ANN [2:16:16:7] model performed best, with 74% accuracy, whereas ANN [2:16:25:7] performed best in cross-validation, with 80% accuracy. The best individual outputs were “tacked-together” from the best five ANN models and were also analyzed, achieving accuracy up to 88%. It is suggested that when these seven mix-design influencing factors are involved, then ANN [2:16:25:7] can be used to predict the mix which can be cross-verified with GDX-ANN [7:14:2] to ensure accuracy and, due to the few mix trials required, help design the SHGC with lower costs, less time, and fewer materials.