Estimating Uniaxial Compressive Strength of Pyroclastic Rocks using Soft Computing Techniques

In this study, several soft computing analyses are performed to build some predictive models to estimate the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of the pyroclastic rocks from central Anatolia, Turkey. For this purpose, a series of laboratory studies are conducted to reveal physico-mechanical rock properties such as dry density (rho d), effective porosity (ne), pulse wave velocity (Vp), and UCS. In soft computing analyses, rho d, ne, and Vp are adopted as the input parameters since they are practical and cost-effective non-destructive rock properties. As a result of the soft computing analyses based on the classification and regression trees (CART), multiple adaptive regression spline (MARS), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), artificial neural networks (ANN), and gene expression programming (GEP), five robust predictive models are proposed in this study. The performance of the proposed predictive models is evaluated by some statistical indicators, and it is found that the correlation of determination (R2) value for the models varies between 0.82 - 0.88. Based on these statistical indicators, the proposed predictive models can be reliably used to estimate the UCS of the pyroclastic rocks.