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Suspension bridges are critical components of transport infrastructure around the world. Therefore, their operating conditions should be effectively monitored to ensure their safety and reliability. However, the main cables of suspension bridges inevitably deteriorate over time due to corrosion, as a result of their operational and environmental conditions. Thus, accurate annual corrosion rate predictions are crucial for maintaining reliable structures and optimal maintenance operations. However, the corrosion rate is a chaotic and complex phenomenon with highly nonlinear behavior. This paper proposes a novel predictive model for the estimation of the annual corrosion rate in the main cables of suspension bridges. This is a hybrid model based on the multilayer perceptron (MLP) technique optimized using marine predators algorithm (MPA). In addition, well-known metaheuristic approaches such as the genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm algorithm (PSO) are employed to optimize the MLP. In order to implement the proposed model, a comprehensive database composed of 309 sample tests on the annual corrosion rate from all around the world, including various factors related to the surrounding environmental properties, is utilized. In addition, several input combinations are proposed for investigating the trigger factors in modeling the annual corrosion rate. The performance of the proposed models is evaluated using various statistical and graphical criteria. The results of this study demonstrate that the proposed hybrid MLP-MPA model provides stable and accurate predictions, while it transcends the previously developed approaches for solving this problem. The effectiveness of the MLP-MPA model shows that it can be used for further studies on the reliability analysis of the main cables of suspension bridges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity efficiency of load carrying with the accurate serviceability performances of reinforced concrete (RC) structure is an important aspect, which is mainly dependent on the values of the ultimate bond strength between the corroded steel reinforcements and the surrounding concrete. Therefore, the precise determination of the ultimate bond strength degradation is of paramount importance for maintaining the safety levels of RC structures affected by corrosion. In this regard, hybrid intelligence and machine learning techniques are proposed to build a new framework to predict the ultimate bond strength in between the corroded steel reinforcements and the surrounding concrete. The proposed computational techniques include the multilayer perceptron (MLP), the radial basis function neural network and the genetic expression programming methods. In addition to that, the Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) deterministic approach and two meta-heuristic optimization approaches, namely the artificial bee colony algorithm and the particle swarm optimization algorithm, are employed in order to guarantee an optimum selection of the hyper-parameters of the proposed techniques. The latter were implemented based on an experimental published database consisted of 218 experimental tests, which cover various factors related to the ultimate bond strength, such as compressive strength of the concrete, concrete cover, the type steel, steel bar diameter, length of the bond and the level of corrosion. Based on their performance evaluation through several statistical assessment tools, the proposed models were shown to predict the ultimate bond strength accurately; outperforming the existing hybrid artificial intelligence models developed based on the same collected database. More precisely, the MLP-LM model was, by far, the best model with a determination coefficient (R2) as high as 0.97 and 0.96 for the training and the overall data, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estimation of the failure probability for complex systems is a crucial issue for sustainability. Reliability analysis methods are needed to be developed to provide accurate estimations of the safety levels for the complex systems and structures of today. In this paper, a novel hybrid framework for the reliability analysis of engineering systems and structures is extended to reduce the computational burden. The proposed hybrid framework is named as SVR–CFORM and consists of coupling two parts: the first is an enhanced first-order reliability method (FORM) using nonlinear conjugate map (CFORM); the second is an artificial intelligence technique called support vector regression (SVR). The conjugate FORM (CFORM) is adaptively formulated to improve the robustness of the original iterative FORM algorithm, whereas the SVR technique is used to enhance the efficiency of the reliability analysis by reducing the computational burden. The performance of the proposed SVR–CFORM formulation is compared in terms of efficiency and robustness with several FORM formulas (i.e. HL–RF, directional stability transformation method, conjugate HL–RF and finite step length) through different numerical/structural reliability examples. Results indicate that the proposed SVR–CFORM formulation is more accurate and efficient than other reliability methods. Based on the comparative analysis results, the SVR technique can highly reduce the computational costs and accurately model the response of complex performance functions, while the iterative CFORM formulation found to provide stable and robust reliability index results compared to the others reliability methods. • A novel FORM based reliability method is developed for robust analyses of nonlinear problems. • The conjugate FORM is combined with SVR as a robust and efficient MPP search method. • The proposed SVR–CFORM is compared with several reliability methods. • The low-computational cost with stable results is captured using SVR–CFORM compared to other FORM formulas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]