Modeling pile capacity using support vector machines and generalized regression neural network

This note investigates the potential of support vector machines based regression approach to model the static pile capacity from dynamic stress-wave data. A data set of 105 prestressed precast high strength concrete spun pipe piles is used. Radial basis function and polynomial kernel based support vector machines were used to model the total pile capacity and results were compared with a generalized regression neural network approach. A total of 81 data set were used to train, whereas the remaining 24 data sets were used to test the created model. A correlation coefficient value of 0.977 was achieved by generalized regression neural network in comparison to values of 0.967 and 0.964 achieved by radial basis function and polynomial kernel based support vector machines, respectively. Results suggest an improved performance by generalized regression neural network based approach in comparison to support vector machines but polynomial kernel based support vector machines provide a linear relationship to predict total pile capacity using stress-wave data.