Métodos de inteligência computacional com otimização evolucionária para a estimativa de propriedades mecânicas do concreto de agregado leve

Abstract

In lightweight aggregate concrete, the compressive strength, the elastic modulus and specific weight are the most important properties and consequently the most commonly analyzed. The relationship between lightweight aggregate concrete components and their mechanical properties is highly nonlinear, and establishing a comprehensive predictive model of such characteristics is usually problematic. There are works that seek to find this relation of empirical forms. There are also works that seek to apply computational intelligence techniques to predict these properties from the concrete components. Accurately predicting the mechanical properties of lightweight aggregate concrete is a critical problem in engineering projects that use this material. The objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the performance of different computational intelligence methods to predict the elastic modulus and the compressive strength at 28 days of lightweight aggregates concrete as a function of water/cement factor, lightweight aggregate volume, cement quantity and density of the lightweight aggregate. In order to choose the best configuration of each method, a methodology was defined using the Particle Swarm Optmization (PSO) algorithm. Finally, the generalization of the methods through the cross validation process is verified in order to find the method that presents the best performance in the approximation of the two mechanical properties.