Improving the axial compression capacity prediction of elliptical CFST columns using a hybrid ANN-IP model

This study proposes a new and highly-accurate artificial intelligence model, namely ANN-IP, which combines an interior-point (IP) algorithm and artificial neural network (ANN), to improve the axial compression capacity prediction of elliptical concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns. For this purpose, 145 tests of elliptical CFST columns extracted from the literature are used to develop the ANN-IP model. In this regard, axial compression capacity is considered as a function of the column length, the major axis diameter, the minor axis diameter, the thickness of the steel tube, the yield strength of the steel tube, and the compressive strength of concrete. The performance of the ANN-IP model is compared with the ANN-LM model, which uses the robust Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) algorithm to train the ANN model. The comparative results show that the ANN-IP model obtains more magnificent precision (R^2 = 0.983, RMSE = 59.963 kN, a20-index = 0.979) than the ANN-LM model (R^2 = 0.938, RMSE = 116.634 kN, a20-index = 0.890). Finally, a new Graphical User Interface (GUI) tool is developed to use the ANN-IP model for the practical design. In conclusion, this study reveals that the proposed ANN-IP model can properly predict the axial compression capacity of elliptical CFST columns and eliminate the need for conducting costly experiments to some extent.