Enhancing prediction accuracy of concrete compressive strength using stacking ensemble machine learning

Accurate prediction of concrete compressive strength can minimize the need for extensive, time-consuming, and costly mixture optimization testing and analysis. This study attempts to enhance the prediction accuracy of compressive strength using stacking ensemble machine learning (ML) with feature engineering techniques. Seven alternative ML models of increasing complexity were implemented and compared, including linear regression, SVM, decision tree, multiple layer perceptron, random forest, Xgboost and Adaboost. To further improve the prediction accuracy, a ML pipeline was proposed in which the feature engineering technique was implemented, and a two-layer stacked model was developed. The k-fold crossvalidation approach was employed to optimize model parameters and train the stacked model. The stacked model showed superior performance in predicting concrete compressive strength with a correlation of determination (R2) of 0.985. Feature (i.e., variable) importance was determined to demonstrate how useful the synthetic features are in prediction and provide better interpretability of the data and the model. The methodology in this study promotes a more thorough assessment of alternative ML algorithms and rather than focusing on any single ML model type for concrete compressive strength prediction.