Combining machine learning models via adaptive ensemble weighting for prediction of shear capacity of reinforced-concrete deep beams

This study presents a novel artificial intelligence (AI) technique based on two support vector machine (SVM) models and symbiotic organisms search (SOS) algorithm, called “optimized support vector machines with adaptive ensemble weighting” (OSVM-AEW), to predict the shear capacity of reinforced-concrete (RC) deep beams. This ensemble learning-based system combines two supervised learning models—the support vector machine (SVM) and least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM)—with the SOS optimization algorithm as the optimizer. In OSVM-AEW, SOS is integrated to simultaneously select the optimal parameters of SVM and LS-SVM, and control the coordination process of the learning outputs. Experimental results show that OSVM-AEW achieves the greatest evaluation criteria for coefficient of correlation (0.9620), coefficient of determination (0.9254), mean absolute error (0.3854 MPa), mean absolute percentage error (7.68%), and root-mean-squared error (0.5265 MPa). This paper demonstrates the successful application of OSVM-AEW as an efficient tool for helping structural engineers in the RC deep beams design process.