Compressive Strength Estimation of Steel-Fiber-Reinforced Concrete and Raw Material Interactions Using Advanced Algorithms.

Steel-fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) has been introduced as an effective alternative to conventional concrete in the construction sector. The incorporation of steel fibers into concrete provides a bridging mechanism to arrest cracks, improve the post-cracking behavior of concrete, and transfer stresses in concrete. Artificial intelligence (AI) approaches are in use nowadays to predict concrete properties to conserve time and money in the construction industry. Accordingly, this study aims to apply advanced and sophisticated machine-learning (ML) algorithms to predict SFRC compressive strength. In the current work, the applied ML approaches were gradient boosting, random forest, and XGBoost. The considered input variables were cement, fine aggregates (sand), coarse aggregates, water, silica fume, super-plasticizer, fly ash, steel fiber, fiber diameter, and fiber length. Previous studies have not addressed the effects of raw materials on compressive strength in considerable detail, leaving a research gap. The integration of a SHAP analysis with ML algorithms was also performed in this paper, addressing a current research need. A SHAP analysis is intended to provide an in-depth understanding of the SFRC mix design in terms of its strength factors via complicated, nonlinear behavior and the description of input factor contributions by assigning a weighing factor to each input component. The performances of all the algorithms were evaluated by applying statistical checks such as the determination coefficient (R