Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79

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Computers and Structures

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

A genetically optimized neural classifier applied to numerical pile

integrity tests considering concrete piles
Eftychios Protopapadakis a,⇑, Marco Schauer b, Erika Pierri b, Anastasios D. Doulamis c,
Georgios E. Stavroulakis a, Jens–U. Böhrnsen b, Sabine Langer b
a
Technical University of Crete, School of Production Engineering and Management, 73100 Chania, Greece
b
Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institut fuer Statik, Arbeitsgruppe Vibroakustik, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
c
National Technical University of Athens, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Vision and Photogrammetry Lab., 9 Iroon Polytechneiou Str, Zografos 15780, Athens, Greece

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A genetically optimized neural detector is utilized for the identification of structural defects in concrete
Received 11 February 2015 piles. The proposed methodology is applied on numerically generated data, involving two major defect
Accepted 3 August 2015 types. A coupled finite element and scaled boundary finite element method approach is used to model
Available online 21 October 2015
the pile and its surrounding soil. The oscillation patterns, produced on the surface of the pile, depend
strongly on the introduced defect type. The proposed defect detection system provides information about
Keywords: the type and the placement of the defect(s), given the surface’s oscillation patterns.
Pile integrity test
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Impact–echo
Low strain method
Neural networks optimization
Island genetic algorithm
Scaled boundary finite element method

1. Introduction
Many civil structures, such as buildings, bridges, towers and
dams require special foundation in the form of piles. These piles
are usually built by using cast-in-situ techniques. Sometimes,
‘‘necks” or ‘‘bulbs” may be created in the process of drilling. Such
defects may affect the bearing capacity of the piles. Hence, the
structural evaluation and monitoring of new and existing piles is
extremely important. In this paper, we are interesting in
non-destructive testing (NDT) evaluation, using soft computer
approaches, for the identification of neck-type or bulb-type
defects.
NDT plays a key role in assuring the adequacy of manufactured
components, and has been a core research area for many years
[11–13]. NDT methods may rely upon the use of electromagnetic
radiation, sound, and inherent properties of materials to examine
structural samples. In NDT, the structure undergoes a dynamic
input, for instance, the tap of a hammer or a controlled impulse.
Key properties, such as displacement or acceleration at different
points of the structure, are measured and analyzed.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: eprotopapadakis@isc.tuc.gr (E. Protopapadakis), m.schauer@
tu-braunschweig.de (M. Schauer), adoulam@cs.ntua.gr (A.D. Doulamis), gestavr@
dpem.tuc.gr (G.E. Stavroulakis), j-u.boehrnsen@tu-braunschweig.de (J.U. Böhrnsen),
s.langer@tu-braunschweig.de (S. Langer).
A pile integrity test (PIT) is normally carried out by using a non-
destructive integrity testing instrument, for assessing the integrity
of pile foundations. The instrument consists of a small accelerom-
eter, a hand-held hammer and a data acquisition unit. The length
and defects in pile foundations are evaluated by identifying and
analyzing the traveling time, phase, direction, and the amplitude
of the reflections, captured by the accelerometer. The test is based
on wave propagation theory; the impact generates a compression
wave, which travels down the pile at a constant wave speed.
Changes in cross sectional area (such as a diameter’s variations)
result in wave reflections.
Ideally, engineers would desire the use of an intelligent soft-
ware tool able to automatically analyze these complex waveforms,
generated as a result of a PIT testing, and detect/inform about piles’
condition state. Thus, experts can evaluate which piles are appro-
priate or not regarding stability properties. However, due to the
high non-lineralities involved in these waveforms, as a part of
real-life material properties and structural defects, simplified
detectors (e.g. linear classifiers) are not able to yield sufficient
results.
In this paper, an innovative work for the NDT of piles is carried
out using a mixture of state of the art soft computing techniques,
appropriate feature extraction and data generation procedures.
The defects detector is a topologically optimized artificial neural
network (ANN) via an island genetic algorithm. The innovation of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruc.2015.08.005
0045-7949/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79
the current methodology consists in the fully automatic post
processing technique, which results in high classification
performance, easy implementation and noise tolerance, using a
limited training sample.
The results have been obtained on experimental data, originat-
ing from laboratory samples. As described in Section 2, available
data simulate as much as possible real-life phenomena of
structural defects (i.e. bulb/neck type). In such critical civil infras-
tructures, application of novel intelligent classification algorithms
for defects’ prediction should be first validated and tested under
laboratory conditions and then on real-data. This paper focuses
on an innovative experimentation process, since collection of real
data is not only costly in terms of financing, but also risky in such
critical civil infrastructures.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes
the proposed methodology and provides a related work on the
field. Section 3 refers to the coupled FEM-SBFEM approach
employed for the piles’ wave propagation simulation. Section 4
explains the numerical simulation and the waveforms generation.
Section 5 provides a brief description of the neural networks and
the island genetic optimization scheme. Data extraction and exper-
imental results are discussed in Sections 6 and 7, respectively.
Conclusions can be found in Section 8.
2. The proposed methodology
Low strain integrity tests were carried out in time domain. In
time domain reflectometry, the wave is generated by a hand held
hammer blow impact and the response, as a function of time, is
picked up by multiple accelerometers, placed on pile head and
around it, on a circle base. Monitoring and analysis of these reflec-
tions form the basis of integrity testing [14,15]. This paper, mainly,
focuses on the defect detection mechanism and the features
extraction approach; to do so, a data set is required.
As a first step, we employed a coupled finite element method
(FEM) scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) approach,
in order to simulate the low strain integrity test. Consequently,
various pile geometries and defects can be easily investigated
(i.e. the necessary waveforms for the behavioral analysis can be
created using mathematical models and numerical simulation).
In this way various conditions of pile defects can be approximated.
An appropriate amount of data sets are available (covering differ-
ent types of piles’ defects), allowing smooth training and rigorous
testing for the defects detection system. These sets vary in terms of
training data/evaluation data analogy, as well as, the nodes utilized
to form the training base.
Signal processing techniques had to be applied, in order to serve
the defect detection scheme. Thus, appropriate feature extraction
maps the entire piles’ waveform into a new subspace (containing
as much information as possible). Afterwards, these features are
fed to the detection model. The aforementioned procedure is
mainly based on the transient period properties, statistical
measures like mean square error (MSE) and mean absolute
error (MAE), observed axis (x, y, z) and movement attributes such
as displacement, velocity and acceleration [19]. Finally, neural
detectors (genetically optimized) are exploited for the defect
identification.
The main purpose of this paper is to provide a solid basis for the
development of a robust technique for defect recognition. Simula-
tion of actual situations, in laboratory environments, is a common
procedure for the evaluation of various testing methods. Simula-
tions help avoiding excessive costs, allow great variance in the
testing conditions and no risk factors appear for data gathering.
The selected evaluation set covers two commonly appeared defect
types; ‘‘necks”, ‘‘bulbs” and possible combinations.
69
2.1. Related work
Stress wave-based NDT have been used to evaluate the condi-
tion of pile foundations for a number of years. These methods
can be classified into surface reflection and borehole methods
[1]. In this paper we focus on the surface reflection techniques.
The reflection methods use the reflected wave, which is sensed
by a receiver usually located at the top surface of the pile, to deter-
mine the integrity of the pile.
The sonic-echo (SE) and impulse-response (IR) tests are the
most frequently used reflection techniques. Most studies evaluate
the integrity of newly installed piles with an accessible pile head
condition using the SE and IR methods [2–4]. The limitations and
applicability of these methods with regard to checking the length
and integrity of isolated piles are well investigated [5–7]. Although
nondestructive tests are relatively easy to perform, interpretation
of the data collected is sometimes difficult [8].
ANNs are widely used in various cases because of their ability to
deal effectively with complex, non-linear environments [16–18].
Relating work on inverse analysis and defect identification
problems solved by optimization and neural networks can be
found in [20–23]. Post processing of experimental or numerical
data, coming from PIT by means of ANNs techniques, have been
published in several papers, see among others [24–28].
These ANN-based approaches exploit relatively simple ANN
topologies, using a few selected inputs. Therefore, the users must
have quite extended experience in order to choose the measure-
ments to use, while the effectiveness of the neural network cannot
be guaranteed. On the contrary, the genetically optimized neural
network technique used in this paper allows us to automatize
the topology parameters of the ANN to achieve high effectiveness
rates.
Recent approaches are the work of [5], who investigate the rel-
ative performance of the SE, IR, and parallel seismic tests using a
field constructed pile foundation incorporating simulated defects
and the work of [9], who exploit non-linear ultrasonic and acoustic
emission techniques for nondestructive evaluation of concrete,
damaged under compression loading. Finally, the work of [10],
demonstrates the usefulness of semi supervised learning assump-
tions for the defect recognition in concrete piles.
3. Coupled FEM-SBFEM approach
In order to simulate the wave propagation through the piles a
coupled FEM and SBFEM approach is used. This approach satisfies
Sommerfeld’s radiation condition and allows simulating an infinite
half space. This ensures that the applied impulse will not be
reflected at the artificial boundary which is introduced by the
boundary of the numerical discretisation. The coupled approach
proposed here requires only the discretisation of a small domain
compared to a purely FEM-based approach.
FEM and SBFEM are used to model the near field and far field,
respectively. The equation of motion at an arbitrary time step
can be written as


 " #

Mnn Mnf Knn Knf pnn 0
€þ
u u¼  ð1Þ
Mfn Mff Kfn Kff pff pb
where the vector u represents the nodal displacement, u € the nodal
acceleration, and p denotes the applied nodal forces. M is the mass
matrix and K stands for the stiffness matrix. Here, matrix blocks
with subscript nn contain the nodes of the near field while blocks
with subscript ff comprise the nodes of the far field. The coupling
of near and far field nodes is reflected in those blocks subscribed
with nf and fn. Vector pb denotes the far field influence on the near
70 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79

field, so that the behaviour of the infinite half space can be applied assumed. In both cases an isotropic ideal elastic material model
to the FEM sub-domain as a load. is used, which is considered to be sufficient for these studies. Slip-
The far field is represented by the forces of the far field pb at the ping effects between pile and soil are not taken into account; they
interface given by the convolution integral: are insignificant. This would be totally different if the pile driving
Z t
would be analyzed as well.
pb ðtÞ ¼ M1 ðt  sÞu
€ ðsÞds ð2Þ The material parameters lead to p-wave velocity cp of 3870 ms
0 and 235 ms for pile and soil, respectively. Note that, we are inter-
ested in the piles’ behavior and only indirectly in the soils’ behav-
where M1 ðtÞ is the acceleration unit-impulse response matrix.
ior. Since the load is applied to the pile the wave is reflected at
Detailed information on how the acceleration unit-impulse
change impedance. Once the wave is in the soil, it will vanish to
response matrices are assembled are published in [29–31].
infinity, and it does not matter, whether the wave is going to be
damped or not. A time step length Dt ¼ 6  106 is chosen to con-
4. Numerical simulations of pile integrity tests duct the numerical simulations. The integration schemes parame-
ters are set by choosing p1 ¼ 0:6 [55].
The applied pile integrity test is a non-destructive in situ test Applying symmetry boundary conditions allows to consider
and can be found in the literature either as low strain integrity test only a quarter of the entire domain, consequently reducing the
or as impact echo testing [14,15]. Due to the fact that the material computational effort. On top of the pile a time dependent load
parameters, Young’s modulus, and density vary only slightly, the
result can be related to the pile’s geometry directly. pðtÞ ¼ ð50  g Þeg ; with g ¼ ð5tp  6Þ2 ð3Þ
Different three-dimensional pile configurations are analyzed. is applied to the finite element nodes on the piles’ head (as shown
All investigated piles are modeled as floating piles, since no bed-
in Fig. 2) in order to simulate the impulse of a hand hammer. Trans-
rock is taken into account. One clean pile without defects, Fig. 1
ferring pðtÞ into pðf Þ by applying a Fourier transformation to the
(ideal), is discretized. Length l0 and radius r0 are chosen as 2:1 m
load in time domain leads to load representation in frequency
and 0:1 m, respectively. The surface of the ground is defined at domain. The applied load excites the pile within the range of
0:0 m, the pile’s head is located þ0:1 m over the surface, while
32:5 Hz to 83333:3 Hz. The response of the applied impulse is mea-
the pile’s toe is at 2:0 m in the ground. Additional piles with sured by observing a single node situated at the center of the pile’s
defects are discretized as well, the geometries of these modified
head. Fig. 3 depicts the results for different pile configurations of the
piles are shown in Fig. 1. The figure shows pile geometries and impact-echo measurement.
naming of the analyzed cases. Here only half the longitudinal sec-
tion of the pile is pictured. The pile is divided into 4 sections enu-
5. Neural networks and genetic optimization
merated from 1 to 4 top–down. The ‘a’ stands for additional pile
material and the ‘i’ for inner distortion of pile cross section. So,
Neural networks are non-linear classifiers, which can approxi-
‘Fa2’ gives additional material in Section 2. The last five geometries
mate any non-linear function (with some restrictions on its conti-
in the second row have an internal distortion, which is represented
nuity) within any degree of accuracy, under the assumption that
with a soil inclusion in the concrete body of the pile.
the used activation functional components are bounded, increasing
The finite element mesh is shown in Fig. 2. The near field is dis-
and continuous [48,54]. As a result, neural networks can be used to
cretized by 116,974 tetrahedral elements and 28,140 hexahedral
classify complex non convex data structures where many local
elements. This lead to 50,611 nodes and 151,833 degrees of free-
minima exists as the ones encountered in our pile signals (see Sec-
dom. The attached far field is discretized by 549 quadrangular ele-
tion 4). However, neural network parameters (i.e. network topol-
ments and 1794 degrees of freedom. All finite elements and scaled
ogy, learning rate, initial weights, etc.) affects its performance in
boundary finite elements are using linear shape functions. The
finding a suitable solution. Even if we optimally select these
minimum elements length is ‘min ¼ 7:10347  103 m the maxi-
parameters, the neural net may not be able to offer a good function
mum length is ‘max ¼ 6:46424  101 m. approximation. Yet, an inappropriate selection of these parameters
The pile’s material parameters are set as follows: Young’s mod- and the network topology may lead to a poor performance.
ulus E ¼ 37; 000 MN
m2
, Poisson’s ratio m ¼ 0:2, density q ¼ 2:6 mt3 . For For this reason, in this paper an island genetic algorithm is
the surrounding soil, E ¼ 100 MN
m2
; m ¼ 0:3 and q ¼ 2:1 t
m3
is chosen to optimize network topology so as to improve its

Fig. 1. Pile geometries and naming of the cases.

 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79 71

Fig. 2. Left: The FEM near field discretization includes pile and surrounding soil; Right: Top view at the piles surface and the corresponding node numbers. Thus, the nodes 1–
2–3–15–21–25–27 define the piles perimeter.

Fig. 3. Time dependent plots for displacement, velocity and acceleration for pile configuration: ideal, Fi34, Fi4, Fa34 and Fa234. Note that, initially, acceleration and velocity
are not zero, but close to. Due to the applied load, the entire system is in motion, including the pile and the soil as well. When simulation runs longer, everything gets back to
the initial state where displacements, velocities and accelerations are exactly zero.

performance. Genetic algorithms are global search methods, that
are based on principles like selection, crossover and mutation.
Given a training and validation set, we expect to tune well the
above parameters, in order to achieve high accuracy and reliability,
despite data set complexity. Instead of using heuristic approaches
to define the topology, a global search method is employed in order
to approximate a good tuning.
5.1. Pile’s defects neural detector formulation
Artificial neural networks are non-linear mapping structures,
inspired by animal central nervous systems (in particular the
brain) that are capable of machine learning and pattern recognition
[32,48]. ANNs can identify and learn correlated patterns between
input data sets and corresponding target values. After training,
ANNs can be used to predict the outcome of new independent
input data. Their structure consists of weights, biases and activa-
tion functions, imitating the real brain’s neurons and synapses.
Therefore simple computational units called neurons, which are
highly interconnected are used. The work of [50] provides a clear
and detailed survey of basic neural network architectures and
learning rules. The most widely used learning algorithm in an
ANN is the back-propagation algorithm [33] or its variations
(e.g. [34]).
Denote as f a non-linear function (relationship) that indicates
the structural capacity of a pile. This non-linear relationship is
approximated, in our case, by a Feed Forward Neural Network
(FFNN) architecture. Denote as ^f w the approximated function of f
as has been produced by the FFNN structure, where w denotes
the neural network weights. Actually, function f maps to a compact
subset A of n-dimensional Euclidean space, Rn to a bounded
subset f ½A of m-dimensional Euclidean space, Rm . Denote, also, as
72 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79
S ¼ fðx1 ; y1 Þ; ðx2 ; y2 Þ; . . . ; ðxK ; yK Þg a training set of K elements used
to find appropriate parameters to approximate the unknown
function ^f w by estimating the weights w. Vector xi is a feature
vector as described in Section 6, while vector yi ; i ¼ 1; 2 . . . ; K is
the desired output declared by an expert, indicating the quality
of the pile.
The weights w are initially set as random numbers. During
training, weights are adjusted, in order to generate a mapping
between input–output training patters. To estimate these weights,
a reliable training set S is needed, i.e., on K characteristics samples.
In particular, set S includes characteristics input vectors based on
measurements taken from piles’ tests, while the outputs the
desired outputs as regards piles’ quality. It has been shown in
[35] that a feed-forward neural network (see Fig. 4) can approxi-
mate any non-linear function within any degree of accuracy.
One of the most important problems, during network training,
is overfitting, a situation in which the network can memorize train-
ing samples, providing a very small error on data of training set,
without being able to generalize to new situations (bad generaliza-
tion performance) [37]. One method for addressing this problem is
to use the cross validation technique. In particular, the available
data are divided into two subsets; the training set trains the net-
work, while the validation set evaluates the network performance
on data outside the training set. The error on the validation set will
normally decrease during the initial phase of training, as does the
error on the training set.
The network performance, however, depends on a number of
parameters, such as the network size, the number of neurons and
the attributes used as inputs to the network [36]. There is, also,
the adopted training-algorithm impact (see Table 3(b) in
Section 7.3). Apparently, proper selection of the network size is
‘‘art” in the sense that there are no concrete mathematical rules
to define the structure, apart from proposing worst bounds.
In particular, networks of small size are not able to approximate
complicated non-linear functions since few neurons are not suffi-
cient to implement all possible input–output relations. Instead,
various studies on network learning versus generalization, such
as the VC dimension [38] indicate that an unnecessarily large
Fig. 4. An illustration of artificial neural network unit [36].
network heavily deteriorates network performance [36]. In this
paper, an island genetic algorithm is applied to estimate the
network parameters and structure.
5.2. Genetic algorithms
Genetic algorithms (GAs) are search heuristics that mimic the
process of natural selection in optimization problems. The useful-
ness of the GAs is generally accepted [39]. However, there is little
census on which type of modification in their structure can be ben-
eficial. Thus, most modifications utilized have a nature-inspired
analogy which improves their performance [40,41]. Such modifica-
tions can be applied to various problem domains. In addition, GAs
are easy to hybridize: they can be combined with other algorithms
that solve specific problems.
GAs have a basic structure, which includes various components
[42]. Among them are: the search space, the population (a set of
posible solutions within search space), a set of genetic operators
for generating new individuals (possible solutions), the stochastic
control (controls genetic operators and governs execution of GA)
and a fitness function for the solutions evaluation.
Generally, there are four basic steps in GAs. The first step is
initialization, where the initial population is created (usually by
random sampling). After that, follows the evaluation, where fitness
is calculated for individuals in the population. Then, selection is
performed, where surviving individuals are chosen from the popu-
lation (usually according to values of fitness function). Finally,
recombination (includes crossover and mutation) takes place by
changing the individual’s representation.
5.3. The island genetic algorithm formulation
Assume a population of n individuals fI1 ; . . . ; In g. Each individ-
ual describes uniquely the topology of a FFNN. The formulation
of the k-th individual has the form of Ik ¼ fP 1 ; P 2 ; . . . ; Pm g, where
Pj denotes the corresponding topology parameter j. Such parame-
ters may refer to the number of training epochs, t e , the number
of hidden layers, h, the number of neurons per layer n, and the
 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79
form of activation functions, f a . The main idea is the creation of
high level individuals I . Then, only the best among them will serve
as the appropriate classifier. The GA operates in such a way that a
set of random individuals will evolve to very efficient classifiers,
through a nature inspired procedure [43].
Let us denote as S ¼ fS1 ; S2 ; . . . ; Sl g the number of initial popula-
tion sets, also called islands. Then, a genetic algorithm occurs in
each island. Firstly, individuals are picked randomly in pairs of
two, i.e. I1 ; Ik from Sl . Then, a crossover operator, defined as a
function f c ðIj ; Ik Þ ! Inew;1 ; Inew;2 , produces two new individuals.
These offsprings mutate with a probability mp , so that
f m ðInew Þ ! Inew;mutated . Finally, a tournament selection scheme is
k k
employed, among parents, ðij ; ik Þ and offsprings, ðInew
l ; Inew
m Þ, in order
keep the two best updating the population. Also, individuals
among islands may swap according to predefined conditions. As
such, we have an island GA.
The fitness of each individual Ik is decided using a fitness func-
tion. A fitness function or quality function is a monotonic mapping
procedure from individuals space Is to real number space f : Is ! R
that produces a quality metric for every individual, so that:
f ðsi Þ > f ðsj Þ ) si  sj ð4Þ
The above statement depicts the preference of individual si over
individual sj . Denote as t eras an integer that describes the genetic
algorithm’s iterations. For every island si the generation/selection
procedure for N2 individuals combination will occur for t eras times.
N denotes the population of each island. At this point, a possible
drawback of the algorithm appears; the so called genetic drift refers
to the tendency of the algorithm to converge to a local optima, as it
is described from the existing population [44] (i.e. reduction of
genetic variation). In other words, low quality population most
likely will lead to low quality new individuals.
Although mutation partially deals with the problem, research-
ers went one step ahead by exploiting the island immigration con-
cept [45,46]. The idea of island algorithm is based on the fact that
different islands (populations) create diversifiable alternatives. By
exchanging among them, these alternatives local minima can be
easily bypassed. Assuming that after t m executions of GA in one
island a population of similar individuals Is exists. The term similar
individuals for two random individuals Ii ; Ij can be expressed as:
Ii  Ij ) f ðIi Þ ’ f ðIj Þ.
In other words, it is likely that the offsprings will have very sim-
ilar performance, so that: f ðIi Þ ’ f ðIj Þ ’ f ðIoffspring;1 Þ ’ f ðIoffspring;2 Þ.
Even if mutation occurs, the probability of performance improve-
ment is very low and even that is the case the improvement will
new old
be minor, i.e. f Ibest ¼ f Ibest þ df , where df denotes the low signifi-
cance of the improvement. Yet, if an individual appears from a dif-
ferent island, i.e. Iisland;j
L with a performance f(Iisland;j
L ) there are two
possibilities:
1. New offsprings from the mix of Iisland;i
L and Iisland;j
L will have a per-
formance aggregate of Df , where Df denotes mayor improve-
ment over the old best individual.
2. Low quality individuals will occur and, thus, will be ignored
through the selection procedure.
The island GA uses a population of alternative individuals in
each of the islands. Every individual is a FFNN. While eras or epochs
of training pass networks parameters are combined in various
ways in order to achieve a suitable topology. A pair of FFNNs (par-
ents) is combined in order to create two new FFNNs (children).
Children inherit randomly their topology characteristics from both
their parents. Under specific circumstances, every one of these
characteristics may change (mutation). The quartet, parents and
73
children, are then evaluated and the two best will remain, updating
that way the islands population. An era has passed when all the
population members participate in the above procedure.
In order to bate the genetic drift, population exchanges among
the islands, every four eras. The algorithm terminates when all eras
have passed. The main steps of the genetic algorithm are shown in
Fig. 5. The algorithm is used to parametrize the topology of the
non-linear classifier. Regarding the activation functions, the alter-
natives were five: hyperbolic tangent sigmoid, log-sigmoid, hard-
limit, symmetric hard-limit and saturating linear.
Individuals may mutate at any era. Mutation can change any of
the, previously stated, topology parameters, therefore individuals
parameters outside the initially defined range may occur. The fit-
ness of a network is evaluated (mainly) using the MSE among all
the individual’s outputs. There is, also, another correction term
explained below. In particular, the following equation is used:
f i ¼ kpi þ ð1  kÞ ð1  aÞ ¼ kðpi þ a  1Þ  a þ 1 ð5Þ
where f i denotes the networks fitness score, pi is the percentage of
the correct in-sample classification and a the average percentage
difference, among the outputs and target values (e.g. an output of
the form ½0:1; 0:2; 1; 1T is better than ½0:28; 0:34; 1:01; 0:78T ; that
is because it provides a more clear view regarding the defection
type).
6. Data generation and feature extraction
Once a load p (cp. Eq. (3)) is applied, at the top and center of the
pile an oscillation occurs as a result of wave propagation through
the piles’ structure. For a predefined time duration T t the oscillat-
ing patterns Op;i are recorded for every node i. These patterns have
the form of
2 3
xd;t yd;t zd;t
6 zv;t 7
Op;i ¼ 4 xv;t yv;t 5 ð6Þ
xa;t ya;t za;t
where d; v and a stand for displacement, velocity and acceleration
respectively. So all information regarding a piles’ behavior is
expressed by:
Spile ¼ ½Op;1 Op;n  ð7Þ
where Spile denotes the available information about the waveform
in any of the m nodes for a total time T t .
A waveform that describes the oscillating behavior (or recorded
observation for simplicity) for each node represents the base for
our analysis. The recorded observations for each of the piles’ nodes
are too large to be processed and it is suspected to be notoriously
redundant. The simplification of the amount of resources, required
to describe a large set of data accurately, is possible taking two
main assumptions into account:
1. Ideal pile behavior is known. That can be achieved through CAD
models and numerical simulation. Every one of the investigat-
ing nodes has its corresponding ideal waveform. As we will
see that is of major importance during the feature extraction
of the data.
2. There is a transient period with sufficient information, for every
observed node. In other words, a short period of time includes
most of the important signal variations, needed by the model
in order to recognize the type of the defect.
The appropriateness of these assumptions is supported by mod-
el’s performance as shown in Section 7. Because of the high class
dimension of the Spile an appropriate feature extraction procedure
should be followed, so that:
74 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79
Fig. 5. Flowchart of the genetic optimization assisted algorithm [47].
1. Only robust data should remain which will support a smooth
training phase and will allow good out of sample performance.
2. Feature vectors of the same size will be generated regardless
the pile’s defects. These vectors should also allow classifier to
detect multiple defects.
The feature extraction is based on signal subtraction, a common
technique applied in noise modeling [49]. First, let Snew
pile be a new
waveform defined as:
Snew investigated
pile ¼ Spile  Sideal
pile ð8Þ
where Sideal denotes the generated signal from a pile without
pile
defects. Then the data extraction follows by defining:
1. The transient period time T trans . During this period the wave
propagates from the pile’s top to the bottom and then to the
top again. After, T trans , waveforms get a complicated form due
to the waves deflections and reflections.
2. The input vector length nv . We need to map the waveforms
from RT t 1 to Rnv 1 . Small values (i.e. nv < 6) contain less infor-
mation leading to poor classification results, while values
greater than 40 require more training data, which gathering is
not always feasible.
3. The quality metric, Q m , is a mapping function from a specified
time part of a waveform to a single number used to create input
vector.
Here, there are three different metrics used: plain values
extracted from Snew pile , MSE values and MAE values. All the values
emerge from the moment zero (impact time for the load on the
pile) until T trans . In order to export MSE or MAE values the time
period is separated in nv sub-periods and MSE or MAE are cal-
culated for each sub-period. Should plain values (from now on
called diff) using ns values from the time period are used.
7. Experimental validation
7.1. Simulation setup
Impact-echo is a method for non-destructive evaluation of con-
crete, based on the use of impact-generated stress (sound) waves
that propagate through the structure and are reflected by internal
flaws and external surfaces. The aforementioned waveforms, uti-
lized by the proposed neural detector for piles’ defect recognition,
were generated using simulation techniques as described in Sec-
tion 4. An illustration of the signals’ waveform is shown in Fig. 3.
The detector is actually a FFNN topologically optimized, using
the island genetic algorithm as described in Section 5. The detec-
tion system produces a numerical output for all the piles’ parts;
piles’ defects are identified using only a short-length vector as an
input (see Section 6).
The data, fed to the neural classifier, originates from the sub-
traction between two signals (i.e. the ideal and the examined pile)
as shown in Fig. 6. Although the signal duration is 2000 time steps
(or 0.012 s), only the first 400 time steps of the transient period
were utilized. We take into account only the first 400 steps, since
after that period the wave signal is backward propagated causing
interference in the signal altitude. This way, we would create an
input signal of size 400  1. In that case a large number of training
samples is required to avoid overfitting problems, due to the high
dimensionality of the input data space. To handle this problem, we
equally downsample the input signal by 10. Thus, input vector is of
size 40  1.
The system produces a corresponding output vector of size
n  1, where n denotes the number of pillar parts that are investi-
gated (in our case n ¼ 4, as described in Section 6). The number of
parts was selected to facilitate the numerical simulations, in terms
of computational complexity. However, division into greater num-
ber of parts is feasible, for simulating more complex structures. The
first part is located above the ground. For every part, a specific
number, pi , is generated from the neural detector to indicate a cer-
tain defect type, df , as:
 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79 75

Fig. 6. Input vector creation process for the neural detector. The process exploits the differences between the investigated and the ideal pile.

Table 3
Average classification accuracy. (a) Evaluation of IGA FFNN (IGA-T) against predefined
Table 1
topologies (Preset-T), depending on the waveforms utilized. (b) FFNN weights’
Genetic’s algorithm parameters.
training method’s performance, using only z-axis information.
Parameter Min Max
Descriptor Train set Test set
Training epochs 100 400
Preset-T IGA-T Preset-T IGA-T
Number of layers 1 3
Number of neurons (per layer) 4 10 (a) Evaluation against predefined topologies
Number of islands 3 3 xd 0.24 0.70 0.09 0.26
Number of eras 10 10 xv 0.21 0.70 0.10 0.27
Population (per island) 16 16 xa 0.32 0.69 0.13 0.25
yd 0.22 0.70 0.09 0.27
yv 0.29 0.68 0.11 0.24
8 ya 0.29 0.67 0.11 0.23
< 1 ; pi 2 ð1; 0:5Þ
> zd 0.75 1.00 0.73 0.98
df ¼ 0 ; pi 2 ½0:5; 0:5 ð9Þ zv 0.68 0.99 0.64 0.93
>
: za 0.66 0.98 0.57 0.80
1 ; pi 2 ð0:5; 1Þ
Weights’ training method Train set Test set
For the i-th part, value df ¼ 1 suggests the existence of a ‘‘neck”, (b) z-axis observations
while value df ¼ 1 suggests the existence of a ‘‘bulb”. Value df ¼ 0 Bayesian regularization [51] 0.56 0.54
Gradient descent with momentum (GDM) 0.14 0.13
corresponds to non detection of any defect. Range selection for GDM + adaptive learning rate 0.71 0.63
the value intervals in Eq. (9) stems from equal division of the detec- Levenberg–Marquardt [52] 0.96 0.90
tor’s interval range of ½1; 1 into three examined defects types. As Resilient backpropagation 0.89 0.80
we recall from Section 6, there are nine possible descriptors to use Scaled conjugate gradient backpropagation [53] 0.93 0.86
in order to create the input vectors (displacement, velocity, and
acceleration at x; y and z-axis).
As we recall, each pile is separated in four parts. The load is The rest three parts are located underground. An assumption is
applied over the top part and observations regarding the nodal made that on every division one defect is allowed. That defection
behavior are recorded; all the nodes are located on the surface. can either be a ‘‘bulb” or a ‘‘neck”. According to the above scheme,

Table 2
Training and evaluation nodes for each of the created data sets.

Set’s name Training nodes Evaluation nodes

ts3 f1; 4; 11; 14; 17; 20; 23; 26g f2; 3; 5; 10; 12; 13; 15; 16; 18; 19; 21; 22; 24; 25; 27g
ts5 f1; 10; 15; 20; 25g f2; 3; 4; 5; 11; 12; 13; 14; 16; 17; 18; 19; 21; 22; 23; 24; 26; 27g
ts7 f1; 12; 19; 26g f2; 3; 4; 5; 10; 11; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 27g
ts9 f1; 14; 23g f2; 3; 4; 5; 10; 11; 12; 13; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 24; 25; 26; 27g
ts11 f1; 16; 27g f2; 3; 4; 5; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26g
76 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79

for each pile an output vector of size 4  1 is created, in which each
element indicates the defect of the corresponding pile part. Totally,
there are recorded values for 23 nodes.
The parameters used for the island genetic optimization are
shown in Table 1. The input feature vectors used for training,
validation and testing occur after extraction of appropriate features
from the original data, as described in Section 3. Among the entire
data set an initial separation is performed, creating training and
testing (evaluation) data sets. Given the training data set, a new
sub set is created using a small portion (in our case 8%) to serve

Table 4
Classification accuracy. The IGA optimal topology’s performance, for each descriptor, is evaluated against a simple GA’s optimized topology and random generated topologies.
Results correspond to average values.

Descriptor IGA GA Random

Train set accuracy Test set accuracy Train set accuracy Test set accuracy Train set accuracy Test set accuracy
xd 0.643 0.425 0.596 0.360 0.358 0.233
xv 0.530 0.254 0.493 0.218 0.338 0.117
xa 0.546 0.377 0.485 0.337 0.332 0.181
yd 0.498 0.639 0.472 0.557 0.301 0.315
yv 0.556 0.320 0.518 0.278 0.332 0.163
ya 0.685 0.605 0.613 0.539 0.421 0.286
zd 0.942 0.912 0.892 0.860 0.744 0.690
zv 0.926 0.905 0.866 0.877 0.742 0.649
za 0.922 0.888 0.827 0.788 0.764 0.686

Table 5
Island Genetic Algorithm optimal topology and the corresponding correct classification results for indicative cases, using MSE based features (IGA results). The same topology
with random weights initialization (no-IGA) performs worse in any case.

Topology parameters IGA results No-IGA results

Descriptor Neurons/layer Activation function(s) Training epochs Train set accuracy Test set accuracy Train set accuracy Test set accuracy
xd 8 tansig 305 0.675 0.426 0.184 0.086
xv 6 tansig 343 0.575 0.261 0.474 0.213
xa [6.7] 2x tansig 315 0.6 0.402 0.555 0.215
yd 7 logsig 297 0.544 0.645 0.018 0.010
yv 5 logsig 198 0.563 0.334 0.613 0.162
ya [8.8] 2x tansig 248 0.695 0.626 0.533 0.149
zd 8 logsig 201 1 0.981 0.976 0.959
zv 9 tansig 323 0.99 0.944 0.974 0.906
za 9 satlin 147 0.981 0.958 0.921 0.883

100 100
Classificaon accuracy [%]

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
Diff MAE MSE Diff MAE MSE
(a) Train set performance (b) Test set performance

100 100
Classificaon accuracy [%]

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
ts9 or ts11 ts7 ts5 ts3 ts9 or ts11 ts7 ts5 ts3
(c) Train set performance (d) Test set performance
Fig. 7. Results of pile’s defects classification. Figures (a) and (b) illustrate the quality metric influence over the detection rates. Figures (c) and (d) illustrate the training nodes
influence over the detection rates.
Table 6
Out of sample results, trained with set ts11. Rows correspond to actual defect type (denoted as A) and columns correspond to model’s prediction (denoted as C).

MSE based metrics confusion matrix MAE based metrics confusion matrix Difference based metrics confusion matrix
Upper Middle up Middle low Lower part Upper Middle up Middle low Lower part Upper Middle up Middle low Lower part
part part part
A\C 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1
xd 1

E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79

0 0 0 0.33 0.585 0.085 0.113 0.738 0.15 0.469 0.422 0.109 0 0 0 0.534 0.438 0.028 0.275 0.713 0.013 0.789 0.125 0.086 0 0 0 0.67 0.318 0.011 0.663 0.338 0 0.719 0.125 0.156
0 0 1 0 0.031 0.922 0.047 0.125 0.808 0.067 0.383 0.539 0.078 0 1 0 0.047 0.875 0.078 0.092 0.842 0.067 0.539 0.289 0.172 0 1 0 0.031 0.969 0 0.333 0.638 0.029 0.531 0.188 0.281
1 0 0 0 0.019 0.65 0.331 0.163 0.65 0.188 0.243 0.556 0.201 0 0 0 0.013 0.519 0.469 0 0.563 0.438 0.431 0.201 0.368 0 0 0 0 0.331 0.669 0.088 0.675 0.238 0.417 0.188 0.396
xv 1 0 0 0 0.466 0.523 0.011 0.263 0.563 0.175 0.805 0.148 0.047 0 0 0 0.67 0.199 0.131 0.475 0.45 0.075 0.406 0.539 0.055 0 0 0 0.653 0.324 0.023 0.575 0.425 0 0.813 0.125 0.063
0 0 1 0 0.047 0.922 0.031 0.113 0.721 0.167 0.703 0.203 0.094 0 1 0 0.672 0.328 0 0.533 0.45 0.017 0.125 0.648 0.227 0 1 0 0.156 0.844 0 0.583 0.379 0.038 0.594 0.336 0.07
1 0 0 0 0.125 0.681 0.194 0.088 0.55 0.363 0.597 0.194 0.208 0 0 0 0.288 0.319 0.394 0.325 0.188 0.488 0.056 0.59 0.354 0 0 0 0 0.319 0.681 0.35 0.325 0.325 0.34 0.264 0.396
xa 1 0 0 0 0.506 0.443 0.051 0.463 0.538 0 0.227 0.297 0.477 0 0 0 0.42 0.466 0.114 0.488 0.5 0.013 0.43 0.078 0.492 0 0 0 0.665 0.33 0.006 0.588 0.125 0.288 0.648 0.109 0.242
0 0 1 0 0.047 0.891 0.063 0.192 0.75 0.058 0.07 0.258 0.672 0 1 0 0.172 0.719 0.109 0.267 0.663 0.071 0.148 0.211 0.641 0 1 0 0.109 0.734 0.156 0.121 0.329 0.55 0.438 0.148 0.414
1 0 0 0 0.219 0.556 0.225 0.175 0.538 0.288 0.056 0.181 0.764 0 0 0 0.144 0.388 0.469 0.025 0.638 0.338 0.063 0.139 0.799 0 0 0 0.038 0.344 0.619 0.038 0.15 0.813 0.396 0.146 0.458
yd 1 0 0 0 0.705 0.267 0.028 0.088 0.275 0.638 0.648 0.227 0.125 0 0 0 0.347 0.335 0.318 0.05 0.663 0.288 0.445 0.508 0.047 0 0 0 0.744 0.25 0.006 0.713 0.288 0 0.328 0.398 0.273
0 0 1 0 0.281 0.547 0.172 0.017 0.263 0.721 0.484 0.297 0.219 0 1 0 0.016 0.141 0.844 0.133 0.383 0.483 0.328 0.344 0.328 0 1 0 0.141 0.313 0.547 0.183 0.613 0.204 0.297 0.391 0.313
1 0 0 0 0.25 0.256 0.494 0 0.188 0.813 0.382 0.285 0.333 0 0 0 0.069 0.144 0.788 0.025 0.25 0.725 0.264 0.458 0.278 0 0 0 0 0.188 0.813 0.1 0.35 0.55 0.278 0.278 0.444
yv 1 0 0 0 0.597 0.324 0.08 0.063 0.263 0.675 0.445 0.43 0.125 0 0 0 0.528 0.324 0.148 0.038 0.313 0.65 0.758 0.219 0.023 0 0 0 0.71 0.227 0.063 0.263 0.325 0.413 0.547 0.336 0.117
0 0 1 0 0.344 0.484 0.172 0.129 0.254 0.617 0.57 0.289 0.141 0 1 0 0.469 0.344 0.188 0.117 0.483 0.4 0.664 0.273 0.063 0 1 0 0.391 0.219 0.391 0.254 0.433 0.313 0.508 0.258 0.234
1 0 0 0 0.1 0.331 0.569 0.163 0.325 0.513 0.521 0.278 0.201 0 0 0 0.138 0.281 0.581 0.013 0.275 0.713 0.514 0.257 0.229 0 0 0 0 0.238 0.763 0.188 0.35 0.463 0.417 0.257 0.326
ya 1 0 0 0 0.273 0.483 0.244 0.338 0.425 0.238 0.539 0.219 0.242 0 0 0 0.614 0.227 0.159 0.1 0.288 0.613 0.617 0.211 0.172 0 0 0 0.205 0.619 0.176 0.675 0.263 0.063 0.258 0.273 0.469
0 0 1 0 0 0.297 0.703 0.283 0.438 0.279 0.398 0.25 0.352 0 1 0 0.109 0.313 0.578 0.138 0.463 0.4 0.57 0.297 0.133 0 1 0 0.141 0.688 0.172 0.313 0.383 0.304 0.078 0.242 0.68
1 0 0 0 0.006 0.306 0.688 0.238 0.313 0.45 0.5 0.222 0.278 0 0 0 0.131 0.3 0.569 0.163 0.288 0.55 0.451 0.278 0.271 0 0 0 0 0.238 0.763 0.138 0.438 0.425 0.049 0.25 0.701
zd 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0.97 0.03 0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0.975 0.025 0 1 0 0 1 0 0.007 0.993 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0
1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.005 0.995 0 0 1 0 0 1
zv 1 0 0 0 0.945 0.055 0 0.84 0.06 0.1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0.97 0.01 0.02 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0.981 0.019 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0.023 0.973 0.003 0.081 0.85 0.069 0 1 0 0.088 0.613 0.3 0.11 0.857 0.033 0.106 0.756 0.138 0 1 0 0 1 0 0.013 0.987 0 0.025 0.963 0.013
1 0 0 0 0 0.015 0.985 0 0.07 0.93 0 0.011 0.989 0 0 0 0.03 0.015 0.955 0.01 0.04 0.95 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.01 0.99 0 0 1 0 0 1
za 1 0 0 0 0.868 0.055 0.077 0.72 0.21 0.07 0.85 0.106 0.044 0 0 0 0.964 0.018 0.018 0.83 0.17 0 0.931 0.044 0.025 0 0 0 1 0 0 0.97 0.03 0 0.994 0.006 0
0 0 1 0 0 0.738 0.263 0.117 0.76 0.123 0.213 0.594 0.194 0 1 0 0.15 0.688 0.163 0.02 0.907 0.073 0.113 0.731 0.156 0 1 0 0 0.85 0.15 0.023 0.927 0.05 0.069 0.763 0.169
1 0 0 0 0.01 0.05 0.94 0 0.1 0.9 0 0.089 0.911 0 0 0 0.025 0.095 0.88 0 0.01 0.99 0.033 0.122 0.844 0 0 0 0 0.06 0.94 0 0 1 0 0.006 0.994

77
78 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79
as validation set. Results suggest the ideal detector topology as
well as the most appropriate features to be used.
7.2. Training, validation and evaluation sets
In this paper various application scenarios were tested. Each
scenario is characterized by various parameters, which led to the
creation of different training and evaluation sets. Specific nodes
were used to form the training data, while the remaining formed
the evaluation data. In our case, five different scenarios were
selected, named ts3, ts5, ts7, ts9 and ts11. The last number in the
name of the data set indicates the ratio between train and test
nodes (e.g. ts5 means that for every node used for training 5 differ-
ent were used for the evaluation).
Due to modeling assumptions over boundary conditions of the
FEM-SBFEM approach, specific nodes oscillation patterns had to
be excluded from the training data generation, as non-
informative. These oscillations refer to x and y axes, but not to
z-axis. To be precise, oscillation patterns on x-axis for nodes
f11; 18; 23; 26; 27g and patterns on y-axis for nodes
f1; 4; 5; 10; 11g were excluded from the training sets; there, x; y
related data should be equal to zero. If not, they are practically
zero. No nodes were excluded when we used z-axis related wave-
forms. Table 2 indicates the train end evaluation nodes for the dif-
ferent scenarios.
Secondly, there is the waveform selection; waveforms of nine
different cases were available: (I) x-axis: displacement (xd ), veloc-
ity (xv ) and acceleration (xa ), (II) y-axis: displacement (yd ), velocity
(yv ) and acceleration (ya ), (III) z-axis: displacement (zd ), velocity
(zv ) and acceleration (za ). An illustration of the waveforms is
shown in Fig. 3, regarding displacement, velocity and acceleration,
during a predefined time period for various pile types.
Thirdly, we need to map the waveforms into the input space. To
do so, we need an appropriate descriptor selection (to accomplish
the mapping). There are three possible descriptor that we use in
this paper. MSE, MAE, and plain differences in specific moments.
All of them were based in subtraction of ideal pile’s oscillations
from investigating pile’s oscillations (see Section 6).
At this point is important to explain why the 23 nodes offer
slightly different features, suitable for training. The variation in
oscillating patterns is due to their placement on the grid at the free
surface on the pile’s top. Nodes’ position differentiates the patterns
(slightly among adjacent nodes and greater as we leave center).
The variance among them is amplified when defects exist.
7.3. Evaluation against other optimization approaches
Firstly, the proposed defect detection methodology was evalu-
ated against three predefined FFNN topologies. These topologies
had one, two and three hidden layers respectively. Each layer
had forty nodes with tangent sigmoid activation function. The
number of training epochs was set to 400 for every case.
MatLab software was used on a 2.6 GHz quad-core, 8 GB RAM
desktop. A great sum of about 2000 simulations were performed.
During these simulations, Levenberg-Marquart weights training
algorithm scored the best among six different training techniques
as shown in Table 3(b). Average classification accuracy, for both
train and test set, are shown in Table 3(a). The proposed IGA’s
topologies were superior compared to predefined topologies,
regardless of quality metric, measurement type (i.e. displacement,
velocity and acceleration) or axis used.
Secondly, IGA generated topologies have been evaluated against
other techniques. The first technique was a conventional Genetic
Algorithm (GA - the described IGA without islands). Additionally,
we used random search to form the topologies. The topology’s
parameter’s range remained the same as described in Table 1.
Table 4 illustrates the average values of these approaches, for dif-
ferent descriptors, within the training and the test set. We have
also compared the results against randomly generated topologies.
In all cases, the IGA optimized classifiers perform better.
Assume that we try to rebuilt an appropriate detector, using the
proposed topology of the IGA (i.e. using the same layers, neurons,
activation functions and training epochs). The performance would
be worse than the IGA outcome (see Table 5). That is partially
explained due to the weights initialization. If we set the topology,
weights are initialized randomly and then fitted to the data. How-
ever, through the IGA, weights are initialized as a combination of
the (already good) parents’ weights.
7.4. Results
The overall classification percentages, as well as, the confusion
matrices are presented for the various quality metrics and descrip-
tors. The following results are the average values from 268 simula-
tions, using the proposed methodology. Levenberg-Marquart
algorithm was the training method in each of these cases.
It is becoming clear that pile’s defects significantly affect the
oscillation patterns in z-axis. Due to that impact features based
on z-axis metrics outperforms measures from x or y axis as we
can see in Fig. 7. In addition the amount of available information
allows us to use only a small training sample (i.e. ts3 as we see
in Fig. 7(c)) achieving, thought, robust results regardless the qual-
ity metric as it appears in Fig. 7(a) and (b). Analytical results can be
found in confusion matrices, Table 6.
Using the above described algorithm for the optimization of the
neural networks a thorough investigation has been first performed.
Some indicative results can be found at Table 5. Detailed perfor-
mance rates can be found at confusion matrices as they appear
in Table 6. The ideal case would be to have a diagonal matrix.
8. Discussion and concluding remarks
In this paper we assess the behavior of a pile, in a non-
destructive way, through the use of low strain integrity tests in
time domain. The wave is generated by a hand held hammer blow
impact and the response as a function of time is picked up by mul-
tiple accelerometers, placed on pile’s top surface. The procedure
involves the waveform recording and noise modeling using signal
processing methods, features extraction and, finally, the defects
detection through a classification scheme.
Initially, appropriate features are extracted in order to map
piles’ waveforms to meaningful short-length signals. Then, these
features are fed to the detection model, in our case a neural classi-
fier, to identify the defects. Since neural-based detector perfor-
mance highly depends on various parameters regarding the
detector structure, such as number of hidden layers, neurons,
training epochs required to get robust detector results, an island
genetic is employed in this paper, to optimize parameters selection
process.
The performed experiments provide very promising results; the
defect recognition rate reaches close to 100%, when observations
on z-axis behavior are used. On the contrary, the performance
based on x and y axes behavior patterns is severely low. The prob-
lem formulation can easily be expanded in piles with more divi-
sions (i.e. than 4) and varying defects’ diameters. Although, a
greater misclassification error is likely, as long as we deal with
‘‘neck” or ‘‘bulb” detection, the performance is expected to remain
high.
Finally, we observe that high detection rates are achievable
using only a handful set of samples for training. The detection rates
are also affected by the shape and the depth; deeper the defect
 E. Protopapadakis et al. / Computers and Structures 162 (2016) 68–79
harder to locate. Piles with more complex structure will be
evaluated in future work. Furthermore, new adaptation strategies
and detection techniques will be investigated to handle non-
stationary waveforms cases.
Acknowledgements
The work has been partially supported by IKY Fellowships of
excellence for postgraduate studies in Greece-Siemens program.
Partial support from a Greek-German scientific and technological
cooperation project IKYDA 2012 is gratefully acknowledged.
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