ACI MATERIALS JOURNAL
Title no. 100-M20
Artificial Intelligence Model for Flowable Concrete Mixtures
Used in Underwater Construction and Repair
by Hassan El-Chabib, Moncef Nehdi, and Mohammed Sonebi
This study explores using artificial neural networks to predict the
rheological and mechanical properties of underwater concrete
(UWC) mixtures and to evaluate the sensitivity of such properties
to variations in mixture ingredients. Artificial neural networks
(ANN) mimic the structure and operation of biological neurons and
have the unique ability of self-learning, mapping, and functional
approximation. Details of the development of the proposed neural
network model, its architecture, training, and validation are
presented in this study. A database incorporating 175 UWC mixtures
from nine different studies was developed to train and test the ANN
model. The data are arranged in a patterned format. Each pattern
contains an input vector that includes quantity values of the mixture
variables influencing the behavior of UWC mixtures (that is,
cement, silica fume, fly ash, slag, water, coarse and fine aggregates,
and chemical admixtures) and a corresponding output vector that
includes the rheological or mechanical property to be modeled.
Results show that the ANN model thus developed is not only capable
of accurately predicting the slump, slump-flow, washout resistance,
and compressive strength of underwater concrete mixtures used in the
training process, but it can also effectively predict the aforemen-
tioned properties for new mixtures designed within the practical
range of the input parameters used in the training process with an
absolute error of 4.6, 10.6, 10.6, and 4.4%, respectively.
Keywords: compressive strength; slump; underwater concrete.
INTRODUCTION
The growing need to simplify the complex and costly
operation of repairing aging underwater concrete (UWC)
structures, such as marine piles and hydraulic canals and
constructing new underwater structures such as cofferdam
bases or bridge foundations, has lead to a growing interest in
developing a special type of high-performance concrete for
underwater repair and construction.
Concrete intended for underwater construction and place-
ment should have the ability to flow readily into place, fill in
complex and narrow formwork, consolidate itself with minimal
or no external vibration, and, most importantly, exhibit a
good resistance to segregation and water dilution to develop
adequate in-place mechanical properties. The successful
development of such concrete must ensure a good balance
between deformability and stability, hence requiring a better
understanding of the effect of the mixture variables on its
performance. It often necessitates the manipulation of such
variables to ensure acceptable rheological behavior, adequate
structural performance, and long-term durability. Previous
research has indicated that sound and adequate in-place
properties of underwater-cast concrete are directly related to
the enhancement in washout (dilution) resistance.1-3 It was
argued that the incorporation of anti-washout admixtures
(AWA) could significantly enhance the resistance of concrete
to washout and segregation,4,5 and that the composition of
the binder, water-binder ratio (w/b), and the dosage of both
ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003
TECHNICAL PAPER
AWA and high-range water reducer (HRWR) directly affect,
with different magnitudes, the stability of highly flowable
UWC.6-8
Based on results of existing experimental studies, the
effects of individual ingredients on the behavior of UWC
mixtures are generally well-known and defined. Some of
these ingredients have dual and sometimes conflicting effects
on the mixture’s performance, however, hence requiring the
trial of several batches before achieving simultaneously
acceptable key mixture properties. In addition, some inter-
national standards have set guidelines and recommendations
for the proportioning of concrete mixtures intended for casting
underwater. For example, the Japan Society of Civil Engineers
(JSCE)9 recommends that the w/b of concrete mixtures
designed for casting underwater reinforced concrete struc-
tures be limited to less than 0.5 and 0.55 in seawater and
freshwater, respectively. The JSCE standard also requires
that specimens cast underwater should develop compressive
strengths greater than 80% of similar specimens cast and
cured above water at any given age. Standards fall short,
however, in defining the overall relationship between mixture
proportions and engineering properties.
Because of the conflicting effects of some of the mixture
parameters and the absence of a theoretical relationship
between mixture proportions and measured engineering
properties, the effect of mixture design on the rheological
behavior and in-place concrete properties are often described
using regression analysis tools and traditional statistical
models.10 These methods are generally based on assumed
relationships and do not have a true predictive capability
outside the experimental domain used for their development.
The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of
using artificial neural networks as an effective tool to predict
the rheological behavior and mechanical performance of
UWC mixtures. Unlike traditional parametric methods, the
ANN method does not need to assume a relationship between
mixture ingredients and concrete performance. This relation-
ship is rather generated from the experimental data provided
to build and train the model.
RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE
There is currently no rational and reliable method that can
predict the performance of flowable UWC mixtures or quanti-
tatively relate their mixture proportions to expected rheological
and mechanical characteristics. This study investigates the
ACI Materials Journal, V. 100, No. 2, March-April 2003.
MS No. 02-203 received June 5, 2002, and reviewed under Institute publication
policies. Copyright © 2003, American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved, including
the making of copies unless permission is obtained from the copyright proprietors.
Pertinent discussion will be published in the January-February 2004 ACI Materials
Journal if received by October 1, 2003.
165

Hassan El-Chabib is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, University of Western Ontario (UWO). His research interests include
self-consolidating concrete and use of artificial neural networks in modeling the
behavior of construction materials.
ACI member Moncef Nehdi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at UWO. He is a member of ACI Committees 225, Hydraulic
Cements; 236, Material Science of Concrete; and E 803, Faculty Network Coordinating
Committee. He is a recipient of the ACI Young Member Award for Professional
Achievement. His research interests include modeling the behavior of cement-
based materials, recycling by-products in construction, use of special concretes in
geotechnical engineering, and durability and repair of concrete infrastructure.
ACI member Mohammed Sonebi is a lecturer at the Advanced Concrete and
Masonry Centre, University of Paisley, Scotland, UK. He is a member of ACI
Committee 236, Material Science of Concrete. He received his MEng and PhD from
the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada. His research interests include self-compacting con-
crete, underwater concrete, high-performance concrete, and rheology.
Fig. 1—Simplified model of artificial neuron.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 2—Values of HRWR in: (a) original mixtures collected
to model washout property (before data screening); and (b)
selected mixtures used to model washout property (after
data screening).
166
feasibility of using artificial neural networks to create an
intelligent model that can be used to predict the properties of
UWC and assist in designing UWC mixtures with tailor-made
properties without the need for a large number of trial mixtures.
ANN-BASED MODEL FOR UWC
Artificial neural networks are powerful computational tools
capable of self-organizing, pattern recognition, and functional
approximation. The architecture of ANNs mimics that of
biological neurons and their operation essentially simulates
the internal operation of the human brain. Because substantial
literature has explained in detail the terminology of artificial
neural networks, this aspect is not addressed herein and
interested readers are referred to the appropriate literature.11-13
The important aspects of building a successful neural network
model for UWC, however, are discussed as follows.
Recently, there has been a growing interest in using artificial
neural networks in engineering applications including the
modeling of concrete properties. For example, ANN was
used to predict carbonation depth in concrete structures14
and, to a limited extent, to model concrete properties as a
function of mixture composition.15,16 Although successfully
trained ANNs have proved to be very effective tools in iden-
tifying complex nonlinear relationships and in modeling
various applications14-17 in cement and concrete research, its
effectiveness depends mainly on the quality of the database
used for its training. The basic methodology for developing
an effective ANN model is to train a neural network to learn
the relationship between a set of inputs and corresponding
outputs. In other words, the network should be trained using
reliable experimental data that is comprehensive enough to
capture all essential aspects that might influence the input/
output relationship, and large enough to effectively cover the
practical range of all input parameters. A well-trained neural
network should have the capability of accurately predicting
an output when it is presented with a new set of inputs from
within the practical range of the training data.
In this study, a feed-forward back-propagation neural
network is used to predict the engineering properties of
underwater concrete mixtures and to evaluate their sensitivity
to variations in mixture ingredients. Feed-forward ANNs are
the most commonly used neural networks in materials
modeling and they consist of an input layer, an output layer,
and a number of hidden layers. Each layer includes a number
of neurons (processing units) partially or fully connected to
neurons in the adjacent layers, and no connection is permitted
between neurons within the same layer. Each neuron in the
hidden and output layers receives multiple inputs from neurons
in the previous layer through connections with associated
strengths (weights). These weights represent the backbone of
the ANN model. Each neuron performs a simple computation
to calculate a net input (weighted sum) and transforms that net
input to an output using an assigned transfer function to serve as
an input to neurons in the subsequent layer or as a network output
if the neuron is in the output layer as shown in Fig. 1.
In general, three very important steps must be carefully
considered and addressed in building an effective ANN
model: 1) selection of database; 2) network architecture; and
3) network training and testing.
Selection of database
The selection of the database to train a neural network is
of paramount importance, and for a neural network to actually
capture the relationships between the parameters of UWC
ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003
mixtures and its engineering properties, it must be trained on
large and comprehensive sets of reliable experimental data
that contain the influential factors on underwater concrete
properties. Basic parameters that affect the behavior of UWC
mixtures such as ordinary portland cement, water, silica fume,
fly ash, slag, fine and coarse aggregates contents, and dosages
of anti-washout and HRWR admixtures were used in this
study for training the ANN model to predict the properties
of UWC mixtures such as slump, slump flow, washout resis-
tance, and 28-day compressive strength of cylinders cast
in and above water.
An extensive literature review has identified a great deal
of experimental data on UWC. Only data having mixture
ingredients with similar physical and chemical properties,
however, were considered in the training and testing process.
Moreover, a wide-spanning discontinuity of some of the
mixture variables can destabilize the training process and
reduce the prediction capability of the network. It was decided
to disregard isolated data and reduce the range of variables.
Figure 2(a) and (b) show an example of the screening process
of HRWR dosages in the data sets used to model the washout
resistance property. Table 1 includes the ranges, mean
values, and standard deviations of all input and output variables
in the final database. A total of 175 UWC mixtures have been
selected from about 235 mixtures gathered from the literature
because they met the criteria used in building the database.
The distribution of the selected database between training
and testing is shown in Table 2.
Network architecture
As mentioned previously, a feed-forward back-propagation
neural network is used in this study to predict the perfor-
mance of UWC mixtures. To date, there are no established
rules to determine the architecture of such a network that
produces best performance. Therefore, a trial-and-error
approach is usually adopted. It should be noted that it is possible
to construct different network architectures with satisfactory
performance for the same application. A network architecture

Table 1—Range, average and standard deviation of measured input and output variables (data shown
is normalized)
Variables Training data Testing data
Range Average Standard deviation Range Average Standard deviation
Cement* 11.83 to 25.27 18.70 4.06 12.55 to 25.23 19.06 3.96
Water* 5.50 to 11.26 9.35 1.68 6.94 to 11.25 9.40 1.76
Fly ash* 0.00 to 5.00 1.22 1.95 0.00 to 5.00 0.96 1.80
Slag* 0.00 to 12.57 1.12 3.55 0.00 to 12.50 0.84 3.24
Silica fume* 0.00 to 5.00 0.97 1.13 0.00 to 2.40 1.08 0.98
* 26.70 to 39.57 30.45 1.96 29.46 to 35.21 30.53 1.59
Sand
Gravel* 25.24 to 50.22 37.90 4.63 29.94 to 44.89 37.83 4.81
AWA* 0.00 to 0.05 0.02 0.01 0.00 to 0.04 0.02 0.01
* 0.00 to 0.60 0.32 0.22 0.02 to 0.50 0.29 0.20
HRWR
Slump† 0.16 to 0.29 0.24 0.02 0.20 to 0.27 0.24 0.02
Slump flow† 0.20 to 0.67 0.46 0.09 0.28 to 0.58 0.43 0.09
‡ 0.01 to 0.16 0.07 0.05 0.01 to 0.13 0.06 0.03
Washout
fc′ (28 day)/air§ 0.30 to 0.67 0.52 0.08 0.38 to 0.62 0.51 0.08
fc′ (28 day)/water §
0.13 to 0.53 0.30 0.10 0.17 to 0.48 0.32 0.14
*
Percentage of total weight of mixture.
†
mm/1000.
‡
% mass loss.
§
MPa/100.

Table 2—Database (distribution of data sets between training and testing)

Slump Slump flow Washout 28-day fc′ (air) 28-day fc′ (water)
Source of data Training Testing Training Testing Training Testing Training Testing Training Testing
18 8 1 8 1 6 1 7 0 6 1
Sonebi, M.
Sonebi and Khayat8 53 5 53 5 44 5 52 6 49 8
10 20 2 21 1 20 2 25 3 — —
Khayat et al.
Khayat, El Gattioui, and
13 2 0 0 13 2 13 2 — —
Nmai6
Khayat19 6 0 5 1 6 0 6 0 — —
20 3 0 0 0 3 1 3 0 — —
Khayat and Hester
21 24 3 23 4 24 3 — — — —
Khayat and Assaad
22 14 1 14 1 14 1 — — — —
Sonebi and Khayat
23 9 1 9 1 9 1 — — — —
Sonebi and Khayat
Total 150 15 133 14 139 16 106 11 55 9

ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003 167


Fig. 3—Architecture of neural network model.
(Fig. 3) developed by Nehdi, El Chabib, and El-Naggar16
was selected for the present study. It consists of an input layer,
an output layer, and two hidden layers. Trial-and-error tests
demonstrated that this architecture offers better perfor-
mance than a large number of other variations. The input
layer contains nine processing units (neurons) representing
the influential parameters of UWC mixtures. The output layer
contains one unit representing the UWC property being
modeled. The first hidden layer includes ten processing units
while the second hidden layer has only five units. A full
connection between processing units in adjacent layers was
adopted and a sigmoid function (logsig) was assigned as the
transfer (activation) function for all processing units in the
hidden and output layers.
Training process
Training a feed-forward back-propagation neural network
to predict the properties of UWC mixtures consists essentially
of teaching the network the relationship between the mixture
ingredients and its performance and how individual parameters
influence the overall behavior of UWC mixtures. This learning
process can take place in a supervised or unsupervised manner.
Supervised learning is adopted in this study and consists of
providing the network with sets of training patterns (inputs/
target) that include the measured output for each input vector
and the network is told what to learn.
The training process is carried out by presenting the network
with sets of experimental data in a patterned format. Each
training pattern includes an input vector of nine elements
representing the mixture ingredients (that is, cement, silica
fume, fly ash, slag, water, sand, gravel, AWA, and HRWR
contents) and a corresponding output representing one UWC
property (that is, slump, slump-flow, washout resistance, or
compressive strength). The exclusion of one or more properties
of UWC in some of the collected data has further reduced the
number of valid experimental training patterns that include
all modeled properties of UWC, which makes it difficult to
train the network to predict all properties simultaneously.
Therefore, each property was modeled separately but using
the same network architecture. This study will not focus on
explaining the properties of UWC; unfamiliar readers are
referred to the appropriate literature.7,8,10,18
The sigmoid (logsig) function assigned as a transfer function
for the output processing unit produces values between 0 and 1.
Therefore, values of all UWC properties in the final database
had to be normalized between 0 and 1 to be compatible with
168
the outcomes of the network. Normalization was achieved
by simply dividing the experimental values of slump and
slump flow by 1000 and those of compressive strengths by
100. Experimental values of washout resistance were already
between 0 and 1 (percentage) and there was no need to
normalize them. Moreover, to simplify the training process and
to prevent the network from destabilizing, it is recommended
that the values of all input variables provided for training and
testing be neither too small nor too large. Therefore, all
values of mixture ingredients were normalized as percentage
of the mixture’s total weight.
Commercially available computer software24 was used to
build and train the feed-forward neural network shown in
Fig. 3. A special programming code was written to assign the
range of the input and output variables, the number of layers
and number of units in each layer, the learning algorithm and
learning rate, the activation function for each processing unit,
and the minimum desired error as a stopping mechanism to
execute the training process. As mentioned previously, biases
and weights or connection strengths between processing
units are modified through the training process and the final
values represent the trained ANN model. Therefore, these
weights and biases have to be initialized, and they are normally
assigned small random initial values. The network is presented
with the variables in the input vector of the first training pattern
and is asked to predict an appropriate output through the
computation and activation of processing units in the hidden
and output layers. The predicted output is compared to the
normalized measured UWC property corresponding to the
same input vector and provided in the input/target training
patterns. The error between the predicted output and the
normalized property of UWC is calculated and stored. The
network is then presented with the second training pattern,
and so on, until all patterns available for training are covered.
The average sum-squared of all errors that the network
stored after each training pattern is calculated and back-
propagated through a learning mechanism to adjust the biases
and connection strengths (weights) between the processing
units. Most learning algorithms are based on the generalized
delta rule; they update the network biases and weights in
the direction of the steepest descent of the error to minimize
the network performance function (reduce the average
sum-squared errors). The learning algorithm adopted in this
study is the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm,24 however,
which back-propagates the network errors based on the
Jacobian matrix that contains the first derivatives of the
network errors with respect to the weights and biases. A typical
iteration of such algorithm can be written as
T –1 T
w k + 1 = w k – [ J J + µI ] J e (1)
where wk = a vector of current weights and biases; µ = a scalar
(small value); J = the Jacobian matrix; JT = the transpose
matrix of J; I = the identity matrix; and e = a vector of the
network errors. This iterative process continues until the
network stabilizes and converges to a desired minimum error
between the output predicted by the network and the provided
targets (normalized measured UWC property).
It is important to note that during the training process, a
neural network is trying to provide memory storage for the
data provided in the training patterns. In other words, the
network is trying to memorize the values of UWC properties
provided in the training patterns that correspond to certain
ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003
values of mixture ingredients. Therefore, it is possible to
continue the training to a point where the difference between
network prediction and normalized measured UWC property
for all training mixtures is virtually zero. In such a case,
however, the model will generally demonstrate poor
generalization capability and will not provide acceptable
predictions when it is presented with new mixtures excluded
from the training. This phenomenon is called over-fitting
(over-training), and it is usually avoided by dividing the
experimental data into training and validation sets; training
is stopped when the average sum-squared errors (ASSE) of the
validation sets starts to deviate from the ASSE of the training
sets. In this study, over-fitting was avoided via an early
stopping mechanism that consisted of providing an appropriate
desired minimum ASSE = 1E–4.
Fig. 4—ANN response in predicting slump values.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The acceptance/rejection of an ANN model for UWC is
based on its ability to generalize its predictions to new mixtures
not previously used in the training and thus unfamiliar to the
model. Good generalization, however, greatly depends on
the final set of weights and biases and the degree of success
of the training process. In other words, before testing the
network model to determine its ability to predict the properties
of new UWC mixtures, the success of the training strategy
must first be evaluated and the quality of the model responses
to training cases must be analyzed.

Performance of ANN model using training data

The network model shown in Fig. 3 was trained to predict
the slump, slump flow, washout resistance, and 28-day
compressive strength of concrete mixtures designed for UWC
construction and repair. Because there was no clear trend in
neural network predictions for either over- or underestimating Fig. 5—ANN response in predicting slump-flow values.
the mixture properties, the reliability of its predictions was
evaluated using the average absolute error (AAE) given by

n
Y –Y
∑ ---------------------------------
1 meas pred
AAE = --- - (2)
n Y pred
i=1

where
Ymeas = measured value of concrete property from experi-
mental data;
Ypred = predicted value of concrete property by network; and
n = number of data points.
The network was trained to predict the slump values of
UWC mixtures using a total of 150 training patterns selected
from nine different sources as shown in Table 2. Each training
pattern contains an input vector of nine elements representing
the normalized ingredients of an UWC mixture and a target
representing the corresponding normalized measured slump. Fig. 6—ANN response in predicting washout values.
Satisfactory completion of the training process was verified
by calling the network model to predict the slump values of flow of UWC mixtures. The network was presented with
the mixtures used in the training process and the response is training patterns containing the normalized values of mixture
plotted in Fig. 4. Clearly, the network has successfully ingredients and the corresponding slump flow and its task
learned to map between mixture ingredients and associated was to predict the slump flow values for UWC mixtures used
slump values of the training patterns and its performance in in the training process. Figure 5 shows the relationship
predicting the slump of the training mixtures is satisfactory between the predicted and normalized measured slump flow
with an AAE = 0.7%. of the training data. Clearly, all data points are located along
A similar strategy was adopted in training the same network the equity line with an AAE = 1.9% and the model response
architecture using a total of 133 training patterns selected in predicting the slump flow of the training mixtures was
from seven different sources (Table 2) to predict the slump considered satisfactory.

ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003 169

 Table 3—Input variables for UWC mixtures used to
test predictions of ANN model (mixture components
shown are normalized as % total weight/m3)
Normalized values (% of mixture’s total weight/m3)
Mixture
No. C W FA Slag SF Sand Gravel AWA HRWR
M1 25.24 10.36 0.00 0.00 0.00 29.55 34.79 .0000 .0671
M2 22.70 10.32 0.00 0.00 2.48 29.55 34.69 .0176 .2643
M3 18.51 10.31 5.05 0.00 1.65 29.47 34.69 .0378 .3082
M4 12.55 10.31 0.00 12.55 0.00 29.61 34.74 .0176 .2207
M5 23.64 11.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.00 35.22 .0355 .0205
M6 21.23 11.15 0.00 0.00 2.35 29.91 35.12 .0354 .2378
M7 14.65 7.63 3.98 0.00 1.31 33.36 38.65 .0269 .6410
M8 14.61 7.61 4.00 0.00 1.33 30.49 41.58 .0010 .6416
Fig. 7—ANN response in predicting 28-day fc′ values (air-
M9 17.29 7.07 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.46 44.90 .0121 .2800
cast specimens).
M10 15.87 7.10 1.38 0.00 0.00 30.45 44.89 .0121 .3049
M11 17.21 6.94 0.00 0.00 1.49 30.05 43.64 .0187 .6489
M12 15.76 8.05 0.00 0.00 1.37 30.19 44.53 .0000 .0933
M13 21.66 11.07 0.00 0.00 1.87 35.21 29.94 .0235 .2410
M14 21.42 11.25 0.00 0.00 2.37 29.74 34.87 .0167 .3390
M15 23.61 11.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 29.96 35.18 .0354 .1385
M16 14.20 8.44 0.00 0.00 0.00 38.91 39.34 .0000 .0769
M17 18.82 6.98 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.23 43.90 .0000 .0658
M18 11.83 11.13 0.00 11.83 0.00 30.03 35.18 .0166 .2464
M19 14.66 7.59 4.00 0.00 1.31 30.47 41.58 .0529 .2697
M20 16.23 7.57 0.00 0.00 1.79 27.63 46.60 .0000 .1812
M21 13.07 7.18 3.57 0.00 1.21 37.51 36.93 .0125 .0850
M22 23.53 11.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.06 35.23 .0165 .1898

Fig. 8—ANN response in predicting 28-day fc′ values
(underwater-cast specimens).
Similarly, the same network model was trained to predict
the washout values of UWC mixtures using a total of 139
training patterns selected from nine different sources as
shown in Table 2. After completion of the training process,
the model was required to predict the washout values for the
training mixtures and its response is plotted in Fig. 6. The
difference between the network predictions and the measured
washout values of the training mixtures was slightly larger
than that of the slump and slump flow with an AAE = 13.5%.
The slightly lower performance of the network model in this
case is believed to be due to the numerically very small values
of washout; even small prediction errors would lead to high
AAE. It could also be due to the higher variability in the
experimental washout data itself, which is more delicate to
obtain in the lab compared to slump and slump flow values.
Finally, the network model was trained on 106 training
patterns from six different sources and 55 training patterns
from two different sources (Table 2) to predict the 28-day
compressive strength of concrete specimens cast in the air
and underwater, respectively. The network predictions of
28-days fc′ (air) and 28-days fc′ (water) for the training
mixtures are plotted in Fig. 7 and 8 with satisfactory perfor-
mance and AAE of 1.2 and 1.0%, respectively.
Performance of ANN model using testing data
As mentioned previously, the acceptance/rejection of a
successfully trained neural network model is determined by
its ability to generalize its predictions beyond the training
M23 12.55 10.30 0.00 12.55 0.00 29.59 34.72 .0376 .3026
M24 21.24 11.15 0.00 0.00 2.35 39.92 35.13 .0165 .2069
M25 17.12 11.09 4.63 0.00 1.53 29.66 35.61 .0163 .3560
Note: C = cement; W = water; FA = fly ash; SF = silica fume; AWA = anti-washout
admixture; HRWR = high-range water-reducing admixture.
data and to perform well when it is presented with unfamiliar
new data from within the range of the input variables used in
the training. Therefore, the ability of the network model thus
developed to predict the fluidity and compressive strength of
new underwater concrete mixtures excluded from the training
data must be validated. The model was presented with a total
of 15 mixtures, randomly selected from seven different studies
as shown in Table 2 (proportions of all mixtures used to
validate the ANN model are listed in Table 3), and was required
to predict the slump value associated with each mixture. At
this point, only an input vector of nine elements representing
the normalized values of mixture ingredients was presented
to the network and no knowledge of the actually measured
slump was provided. The predicted and normalized measured
slump values are listed in Table 4 and the model response is
shown in Fig. 4 where the predicted slump values are plotted
against the normalized measured slump values. The testing
points are slightly over or under the equity line with an AAE
= 4.6%, indicating that model predictions are appropriate.
Similarly, the neural network model was tested on 14 and
16 new mixtures to validate its ability of generalizing its
predictions of the slump flow and washout, respectively.
The network performance in predicting the associated slump
flow and washout for each new mixture in the testing data
was satisfactory. The predicted slump flow and washout values

170 ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003

Table 4—Measured and predicted values for Table 5—AAE of ANN model predictions for
properties of UWC mixtures used in testing training and testing data sets
ANN model Average absolute error, %
Underwater concrete
fc′ (28 days), MPa/100 properties Training Testing
Slump, Slump flow,
Mix- mm/1000 mm/1000 Washout, % Cast in air Cast in water Slump 0.7 4.6
ture
* †
No. Meas. Pred. Meas. Pred. Meas. Pred. Meas. Pred. Meas. Pred. Slump flow 1.9 10.6
M1 .235 .240 .400 .473 — — .461 .428 — — Washout 13.5 10.6
M2 .220 .214 .380 .341 .098 .103 .619 .625 .483 .491 28-days fc′ (air) 1.2 4.4

M3 .220 .222 .420 .429 .018 .013 .565 .543 .475 .447 28-days fc′ (water) 1.0 2.1

M4 .265 .265 .540 .507 .125 .134 .383 .400 .230 .229
M5 .200 .177 .350 .447 .052 .059 .447 .430 .286 .284
M6 .250 .250 .440 .432 .049 .050 .547 .551 .463 .462
M7 .253 .271 .500 .475 .060 .059 .617 .629 — —
M8 .273 .242 — — — — .442 .504 — —
M9 .230 .245 — — .043 .024 .405 .385 — —
M10 .225 .226 — — .030 .048 .567 .555 — —
M11 .230 .196 .415 .528 .028 .028 — — — —
M12 .220 .218 .380 .462 .115 .113 — — — —
M13 .270 .280 .585 .615 .082 .082 — — — —
M14 .270 .270 .550 .549 .048 .048 — — — —
M15 .250 .264 .500 .520 .062 .066 — — — —
M16 — — .280 .279 — — — — — —
M17 — — .330 .267 — — — — — — Fig. 9—Sensitivity of ANN model to HRWR in predicting
M18 — — — — 0.47 0.47 — — — — slump values.
M19 — — — — .036 .036 — — — —
M20 — — — — .090 .090 — — — —
M21 — — — — — — .547 .572 — —
M22 — — — — — — — — .317 .317
M23 — — — — — — — — .284 .284
M24 — — — — — — — — .377 .402
M25 — — — — — — — — .286 .291
*
Meas. = measured.
†
Pred. = predicted.

are plotted against the measured values in Fig. 5 and 6, respec-

tively. Again, it is shown that all testing points are located
within the cluster formed by the training data points and
slightly over or under the equity line with an AAE = 10.6%
in both cases.
Finally, to determine the ability of the network model to
predict the 28-day compressive strength of UWC mixtures
cast in the air or underwater, the model was presented with
randomly selected 11 and 9 new mixtures, respectively. The
network predictions for the testing mixtures are plotted
against the corresponding normalized measured 28-day
compressive strength in Fig. 7 and 8, respectively. The network
response was accurate; all testing points in Fig. 7 and 8 are
located along the equity line with an AAE = 4.4% in the case
of fc′ (air) and 2.1% in the case of fc′ (water). AAEs for training
and testing sets are listed in Table 5.
Because the neural network model thus developed showed
satisfactory performance and demonstrated its ability to predict
the properties of UWC mixtures designed within the practical
training range, it would be worth investigating whether the
model has captured the sensitivity of mixture properties to
individual ingredients. Therefore, a single mixture was
randomly selected from the testing data and used to create
eight new mixtures by only changing the dosage of the HRWR
Fig. 10—Sensitivity of ANN model to AWA in predicting
washout values.
and maintaining all other mixture ingredients unchanged.
Normalized ingredients of the base mixture include 21.2%
cement, 11.15% water, 2.35% silica fume, 30% sand,
35.12% gravel, 0.035 AWA, and 0.238% HRWR. The decision
of changing the dosage of HRWR alone was based on the
fact that its influence on the workability of concrete is well
known and documented. The eight new mixtures were
presented to the ANN model to predict the associated slump
and the relationship between the HRWR dosage and predicted
slump for the new mixtures is shown in Fig. 9. It is clear that
by increasing the dosage of HRWR, the slump increased but
reached a threshold value corresponding to the well-known
saturation dosage of HRWR.
Similarly, six new mixtures were created from a single
mixture randomly selected from the testing data used in the
washout model, by only changing the dosage of AWA to
investigate the ability of the ANN model to recognize the

ACI Materials Journal/March-April 2003 171


Fig. 11—Sensitivity of ANN model to HRWR in predicting
washout values.
influence of the AWA on the washout resistance property.
Normalized ingredients of the base mixture include 21.6%
cement, 11.07% water, 1.87% silica fume, 30% sand, 35.2%
gravel, 0.005 AWA, and 0.241% HRWR. The network was
called to predict the associated washout values of the new
mixtures and its predictions of washout versus the AWA
dosage are illustrated in Fig. 10. It is indicated that by increasing
the dosage of AWA, the washout value decreased. The effect
of the HRWR dosage on the washout resistance was investi-
gated in a similar fashion and results are illustrated in Fig. 11. It
is shown that at low dosage, the HRWR has limited effect on
washout. A slight decrease of washout was observed as the
HRWR dosage increased from 0.05 to 1% likely due to the
improved homogeneity of the mixture. As the HRWR dosage
increased beyond this range, the vulnerability of concrete to
dilution increased and washout increased as a consequence.
The effect of the HRWR dosage on washout is, however,
much less significant than that of the AWA.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on this investigation, the following conclusions can
be warranted:
1. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using a feed-
forward back-propagation neural network to predict the
behavior of UWC mixtures with good accuracy. The model
thus developed was not only able to predict the behavior of
mixtures used in the training process, but it also generalized
its predictions beyond the training data to new mixtures
designed within the practical training range;
2. Predicting the properties of UWC mixtures as a function
of mixture ingredients is difficult to achieve analytically,
whereas a successfully trained neural network model can
predict such behavior instantly and accurately. Therefore,
ANNs can provide a powerful alternative approach to the
available traditional statistical methods in modeling the
properties of UWC mixtures;
3. The model developed herein had a demonstrated ability
to recognize and evaluate the effect of individual ingredients
on the properties of UWC mixtures. Thus, it could be used to
develop UWC mixtures with tailor-made properties without
need for a large number of trial batches as in the case of cur-
rent practice; and
4. Although the prediction capability of the present model
is limited to data located within the boundaries of the training
range, the model can easily be retrained to span a wider
172
range of input variables by providing additional training sets
that cover the new range. In addition, the present model did
not incorporate durability characteristics of UWC and did
not account for the mixing, handling, and curing methods,
which may affect the behavior of UWC. This can, however,
be easily incorporated in the model provided that adequate
data for training the network on these aspects become
available in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through a grant awarded to M. Nehdi.
The authors acknowledge K. H. Khayat from Sherbrooke University in
whose lab most experimental data used to create the model was developed.
NOTATION
AAE = average absolute error
ANN = artificial neural network
AWA = anti-washout admixture
e = vector of neural network errors at output layer
fc′ = compressive strength of concrete (28 days)
I = identity matrix
J = Jacobian matrix
JT = transpose of Jacobian matrix
HRWR = high-range water-reducing admixture
n = number of neurons in layer l – 1
Ujl = net input of neuron j in layer l
UWC = underwater concrete
Wk = vector of current weights and biases in neural network at time k
Wk + 1 = vector of current weights and biases in neural network at time k + 1
wjil = connection strength between neuron j in layer l and neuron i in
previous layer
Xl-1i = input coming from neuron i in layer l – 1
Ylj = output of neuron j layer l
Ymeas = normalized measured underwater concrete property
Ypred = predicted underwater concrete property
θjl = threshold value
µ = scalar in Levenberg-Marquardt learning algorithm
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