Reinforcement learning (RL) is successfully applied to various engineering fields. RL is generally used for structural control cases to develop the control algorithms. On the other hand, a machine learning (ML) is adopted in various research to make automated structural design model for reinforced concrete (RC) beam members. In this case, ML models are developed to produce results that are as similar to those of training data as possible. The ML model developed in this way is difficult to produce better results than the training data. However, in reinforcement learning, an agent learns to make decisions by interacting with an environment. Therefore, the RL agent can find better design solution than the training data. In the structural design process (environment), the action of RL agent represent design variables of RC beam. Because the number of design variables of RC beam section is many, multi-agent DQN (Deep Q-Network) was used in this study to effectively find the optimal design solution. Among various versions of DQN, Double Q-Learning (DDQN) that not only improves accuracy in estimating the action-values but also improves the policy learned was used in this study. American Concrete Institute (318) was selected as the design codes for optimal structural design of RC beam and it was used to train the RL model without any hand-labeled dataset. Six agents of DDQN provides actions for beam with, beam depth, bottom rebar size, number of bottom rebar, top rebar size, and shear stirrup size, respectively. Six agents of DDQN were trained for 5,000 episodes and the performance of the multi-agent of DDQN was evaluated with 100 test design cases that is not used for training. Based on this study, it can be seen that the multi-agent RL algorithm can provide successfully structural design results of doubly reinforced beam.

Existing reinforced concrete buildings with seismically deficient columns experience reduced structural capacity and lateral resistance due to increased axial loads from green remodeling or vertical extensions aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. Traditional performance assessment methods face limitations due to their complexity. This study aims to develop a machine learning-based model for rapidly assessing seismic performance in reinforced concrete buildings using simplified structural details and seismic data. For this purpose, simple structural details, gravity loads, failure modes, and construction years were utilized as input variables for a specific reinforced concrete moment frame building. These inputs were applied to a computational model, and through nonlinear time history analysis under seismic load data with a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years, the seismic performance evaluation results based on dynamic responses were used as output data. Using the input-output dataset constructed through this process, performance measurements for classifiers developed using various machine learning methodologies were compared, and the best-fit model (Ensemble) was proposed to predict seismic performance.

Automated structural design methods for reinforced concrete (RC) beam members have been widely studied with various techniques to date. Recently, artificial intelligence has been actively applied to various engineering fields. In this study, machine learning (ML) is adopted to make automated structural design model for RC beam members. Among various machine learning methods, a supervised learning was selected. When a supervised learning is applied to development of ML-based prediction model, datasets for training and test are required. Therefore, the datasets for rectangular and t-shaped RC beams was constructed by commercial structural design software of MIDAS. Five supervised learning algorithms, such as Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) were used to develop the automated structural design model. Design moment (Mu), design shear force (Vu), beam length, uniform load (wu) were used for inputs of structural design model. Width and height of the designed section, diameter of top and bottom bars, number of top and bottom bars, diameter of stirrup bar were selected for outputs of structural design model. Performance evaluation of the developed structural design models was conducted using metrics sush as root mean square error (RMSE), mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and coefficient of determination (R2). This study presented that random forest provides the best structural design results for both rectangular and t-shaped RC beams.

Many school buildings are vulnerable to earthquakes because they were built before mandatory seismic design was applied. This study uses machine learning to develop an algorithm that rapidly constructs an optimal reinforcement scheme with simple information for non-ductile reinforced concrete school buildings built according to standard design drawings in the 1980s. We utilize a decision tree (DT) model that can conservatively predict the failure type of reinforced concrete columns through machine learning that rapidly determines the failure type of reinforced concrete columns with simple information, and through this, a methodology is developed to construct an optimal reinforcement scheme for the confinement ratio (CR) for ductility enhancement and the stiffness ratio (SR) for stiffness enhancement. By examining the failure types of columns according to changes in confinement ratio and stiffness ratio, we propose a retrofit scheme for school buildings with masonry walls and present the maximum applicable stiffness ratio and the allowable range of stiffness ratio increase for the minimum and maximum values of confinement ratio. This retrofit scheme construction methodology allows for faster construction than existing analysis methods.

Existing reinforced concrete (RC) building frames constructed before the seismic design was applied have seismically deficient structural details, and buildings with such structural details show brittle behavior that is destroyed early due to low shear performance. Various reinforcement systems, such as fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) jacketing systems, are being studied to reinforce the seismically deficient RC frames. Due to the step-by-step modeling and interpretation process, existing seismic performance assessment and reinforcement design of buildings consume an enormous amount of workforce and time. Various machine learning (ML) models were developed using input and output datasets for seismic loads and reinforcement details built through the finite element (FE) model developed in previous studies to overcome these shortcomings. To assess the performance of the seismic performance prediction models developed in this study, the mean squared error (MSE), R-square (R2), and residual of each model were compared. Overall, the applied ML was found to rapidly and effectively predict the seismic performance of buildings according to changes in load and reinforcement details without overfitting. In addition, the best-fit model for each seismic performance class was selected by analyzing the performance by class of the ML models.

Existing reinforced concrete buildings with seismically deficient column details affect the overall behavior depending on the failure type of column. This study aims to develop and validate a machine learning-based prediction model for the column failure modes (shear, flexure-shear, and flexure failure modes). For this purpose, artificial neural network (ANN), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), decision tree (DT), and random forest (RF) models were used, considering previously collected experimental data. Using four machine learning methodologies, we developed a classification learning model that can predict the column failure modes in terms of the input variables using concrete compressive strength, steel yield strength, axial load ratio, height-to-dept aspect ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, and transverse reinforcement ratio. The performance of each machine learning model was compared and verified by calculating accuracy, precision, recall, F1-Score, and ROC. Based on the performance measurements of the classification model, the RF model represents the highest average value of the classification model performance measurements among the considered learning methods, and it can conservatively predict the shear failure mode. Thus, the RF model can rapidly predict the column failure modes with simple column details.

PVA 섬유 보강 시멘트 복합체는 매우 복잡한 미세구조를 가지고 있으며, 재료의 거동을 정확히 평가하기 위해서는 미세구조 특성 을 반영하여 실제 실험과 시너지효과를 내며 효율적인 재료 설계를 가능하게 하는 해석 모델의 개발이 중요하다. PVA 섬유 보강 시멘 트 복합체의 역학적 성능은 PVA 섬유의 방향성에 큰 영향을 받는다. 그러나 마이크로-CT 이미지로부터 얻은 PVA 섬유의 회색조 값 을 인접한 상과 구분하기 어려워, 섬유 분리 과정에 많은 시간이 소요된다. 본 연구에서는 섬유의 3차원 분포를 얻기 위하여 0.65μm3 의 복셀 크기를 가지는 마이크로-CT 이미지 촬영을 수행하였다. 학습에 사용될 학습 데이터를 생성하기 위해 히스토그램, 형상, 그리 고 구배 기반 상 분리 방법을 적용하였다. 본 연구에서 제안된 U-net 모델을 활용하여 PVA 섬유 보강 시멘트 복합체의 마이크로- CT 이미지로부터 섬유를 분리하는 학습을 수행하였다. 훈련의 정확도를 높이기 위해 데이터 증강을 적용하였으며, 총 1024개의 이미지 를 훈련 데이터로 사용하였다. 모델의 성능은 정확도, 정밀도, 재현율, F1 스코어를 평가하였으며, 학습된 모델의 섬유 분리 성능이 매 우 높고 효율적이며, 다른 시편에도 적용될 수 있음을 확인하였다.