Predicting Flexural Strength of FRP-Strengthened Waste Aggregate Concrete Beams with Machine Learning: A Step Towards Sustainability

Abstract

Using waste materials in the manufacture of concrete has many environmental advantages. However, it can be difficult to estimate structural performance, especially when beams are reinforced with fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP). In order to provide a data-driven approach to sustainable structural design, this work explores the use of machine learning (ML) approaches to forecast the flexural strength of FRP-strengthened waste aggregate concrete beams. A total number of 92 experimental datasets were used to develop and assess four ML algorithms: Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Neural Network (NN), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). Regression plots, Taylor diagrams, statistical measures (R2R^2R2, RMSE, MAE, MSE), and explainable AI (XAI) tools, including SHAP, LIME, and partial dependence plots (PDPs), were used to evaluate the model’s performance. RF outperformed NN in terms of predictive accuracy, while XGBoost exhibited similar performance to RF. The most significant predictors, according to a SHAP analysis, were beam length and fiber length, with the lower followed by steel tensile strength, fiber width, and concrete compressive strength. LIME offered local interpretability for individual predictions, but PDPs demonstrated optimal parameter ranges and a nonlinear feature strength relationship. The findings provide engineers with a strong decision-support tool for designing green infrastructure, since they show that ensemble-based models can accurately represent the intricate, nonlinear dynamics controlling flexural behavior in sustainable FRP-strengthened waste aggregate concrete beams.