Applying Support Vector Machines in Rebound Hammer Test

Abstract

There are several nondestructive testing techniques available to test the compressive strength of the concrete and the Rebound Hammer Test is among one of the fast and economical methods. Nevertheless, it is found that the prediction results from Rebound Hammer Test are not satisfying (over 20% mean absolute percentage error). In view of this, this research intends to develop a concrete compressive strength prediction model for the SilverSchmidt test hammer, using data collected from 838 lab tests. The Q-values yield from the concrete test hammer SilverSchmidt is set as the input variable and the concrete compressive strength is set as the output variable for the prediction model. For the non-linear relationships, artificial intelligence technique, Support Vector Machines (SVMs), are adopted to develop the prediction models. The results show that the mean absolute percentage errors for SVMs prediction model, 6.76%, improves a lot when comparing to SilverSchmidt predictions. It is recommended that the artificial intelligence prediction models can be applied in the SilverSchmidt tests to improve the prediction accuracy.