Prediction of the compressive strength of fly ash geopolymer concrete using gene expression programming

Evolutionary algorithms based on conventional statistical methods such as regression and classification have been widely used in data mining applications. This work involves application of gene expression programming (GEP) for predicting compressive strength of fly ash geopolymer concrete, which is gaining increasing interest as an environmentally friendly alternative of Portland cement concrete. Based on 56 test results from the existing literature, a model was obtained relating the compressive strength of fly ash geopolymer concrete with the significantly influencing mix design parameters. The predictions of the model in training and validation were evaluated. The coefficient of determination (R-2), mean (mu) and standard deviation (sigma) were 0.89, 1.0 and 0.12 respectively, for the training set, and 0.89, 0.99 and 0.13 respectively, for the validation set. The error of prediction by the model was also evaluated and found to be very low. This indicates that the predictions of GEP model are in close agreement with the experimental results suggesting this as a promising method for compressive strength prediction of fly ash geopolymer concrete.