Recent Trends in Prediction of Concrete Elements Behavior Using Soft Computing (2010-2020)

Soft computing (SC), due to its high abilities to solve the complex problems with uncertainty and multiple parameters, has been widely investigated and used, especially in structural engineering. They have successfully estimated the capacity of structural reinforced concrete (RC) members and determined the properties of concrete. There are so many articles in literature that applied SC methods for the above goals. However, there is no work to present the capability of such approaches by providing an overview on the available and existing studies. The lack of state-of-the-art review on the subject is the main motivation to present a comprehensive review on the latest trends between 2010 and 2020 in predicting the behavior of concrete elements using soft computing methods. The considered RC structural elements are beams, columns, joints, slabs, frames, concrete filled tube sections and strengthened elements with fibre reinforced polymer. The purpose of the investigated works was predicting the concrete characteristics such as crack, bond, shrinkage, or the strength of the elements. The review showed that SC methods are powerful tools which could provide flexible computational techniques with high level of accuracy for civil engineering problems. However, most of the published works neglected to present the required details and mathematical framework.