A study of glass and carbon fibers in FRAC utilizing machine learning approach

Asphalt concrete (AC), is a mixture of bitumen and aggregates, which is very sensitive in the design of flexible pavement. In this study, the Marshall stability of the glass and carbon fiber bituminous concrete was predicted by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and M5P Tree machine learning algorithms. To predict the Marshall stability, nine inputs parameters i.e., Bitumen, Glass and Carbon fibers mixed in 100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75, 0:100 percentage (designated as 100GF:0CF, 75GF:25CF, 50GF:50 CF, 25GF:75CF, 0GF:100CF), Bitumen grade (VG), Fiber length (FL), and Fiber diameter (FD) were utilized from the experimental and literary data. Seven statistical indices i.e., coefficient of correlation (CC), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error (RMSE), relative absolute error (RAE), root relative squared error (RRSE), Scattering index (SI), and BIAS were applied to assess the effectiveness of the developed models. According to the performance evaluation results, Artificial neural network (ANN) was outperforming among other models with CC values as 0.9147 and 0.8648, MAE values as 1.3757 and 1.978, RMSE values as 1.843 and 2.6951, RAE values as 39.88 and 49.31, RRSE values as 40.62 and 50.50, SI values as 0.1379 and 0.2027 and BIAS value as -0.1 290 and -0.2357 in training and testing stage respectively. The Taylor diagram (testing stage) also confirmed that the ANN -based model outperforms the other models. Results of sensitivity analysis showed that the fiber length is the most influential in all nine input parameters whereas the fiber combination of 25GF:75CF was the most effective among all the fiber mixes in Marshall stability.