Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

Neural networks applications in concrete structures

Muhammad N.S. Hadi *

Department of Civil, Mining and Envir. Eng., Faculty of Engineering, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue,
Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Received 1 October 2001; accepted 2 November 2002

Abstract
This paper presents and discusses the applications of neural networks in concrete structures. It aims at introducing
neural networks applications in structural design. The paper covers two applications of neural networks in concrete
structures. Backpropagation networks are chosen for the proposed network, which is written using the programming
package MAT-LAB. The overall results are compared and observed for the performance of the networks. Based on the
applications it was found that neural networks are comparatively effective for a number of reasons, which include the
amount of CPU memory consumed by neural networks is less than that consumed by conventional methods and their
ease of use and implementation, neural networks provide both the users and the developers more flexibility to cope with
different kinds of problems.
Ó 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Neural network; Optimisation; Concrete design

1. Introduction One of the techniques to reduce the resources and the

The design of structures is an iterative process where
the designers assume a design then go through the
analysis process. Next the designer needs to use the de-
sign rules of the adopted design standard to design the
structure. Next the designer needs to compare the as-
sumed and the calculated designs. Ideally the two de-
signs should be the same. In reality they are seldom the
same, hence the designer needs to take the new design
and go through the process of analysis and design again.
The iterations should continue until the difference be-
tween the assumed design at the beginning of the step
and the output from the same step is negligible. This
lengthy process has led to the adoption of optimisation
techniques. These techniques have been implemented
successfully in many structural systems. These optimi-
sation techniques are usually lengthy and complicated to
implement, hence putting more burden on the designer.
time required for the design process is to store many
optimum designs and train a neural network for the
design. Thus, the neural network will come up with
a design based on its training rather than conducting a
full design from scratch. In this paper, the optimum
design of simply supported reinforced concrete beams is
introduced in simple equations form. Next, these equa-
tions are used to calculate the optimum design of beams
under different loading and configurations. These opti-
mum designs are used to train a neural network, which is
established specifically for the optimum design of beams.
As a second application, the design of fibre rein-
forced concrete beams is presented and a neural network
is developed for the optimum design of fibre reinforced
concrete beams. Examples are solved and compared
with conventional designs.
2. Optimum design of simply supported concrete beams

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-2-4221-4762; fax: +61-2- The cost function of a beam typically includes the
4221-3238. costs of concrete, the cost of reinforcement and the cost
E-mail address: mhadi@uow.edu.au (M.N.S. Hadi). of formworks as illustrated in Fig. 1.

0045-7949/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0045-7949(02)00451-0
374 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381

p ¼ As =bd; / is the strength reduction factor, AS3600

recommends / ¼ 0:8 for flexural and Mu is required
moment capacity.
The above equation can be written as
fy2 2
0:59/ A  /fy As d þ Mu 6 0
bfc0 s

The constraints on the lower and upper limits of steel

ratio, respectively, can be written as
As  pmax bd 6 0 ð3Þ

pmin bd  As 6 0 ð4Þ
Fig. 1. Beam cross-section.
where pmax and pmin are, respectively, the maximum and
minimum allowable reinforcement in a cross-section.
For simply supported beams it is sufficient to base the The side constraint that is incorporated with the means
design only on the section at mid-span, which produces of limit value of maximum depth hm of the beam is
maximum bending moment, and near a support which written as
produces maximum shear force, because most designs d  hm 6 0 ð5Þ
determine the maximum bending moment and maxi-
mum shear. The amount of longitudinal reinforcement The optimisation problem is to minimize equation (1)
governed by mid-span flexural considerations may be subject to the constraints, Eqs. (3)–(5). The problem can
reduced towards the supports by curtailing some of the be solved by the Lagrange multipliers technique [2]. The
reinforcing bars as the bending moment envelope may solution is defined in terms of optimum p, d and As .
allow. On the other hand, the spacing of stirrups may be Using Lagrange multipliers technique the following
adjusted to the requirements of shear force envelope. expressions are obtained:
Finally, the reinforcement details will be subject to the 2Cf
1 þ bC
requirement of the design standard AS3600 [1]. poptimum ¼   c ð6Þ
Cs 2C f f
In this problem, the objective function is the cost unit Cc
þ 2:356 cCfc fsy0 þ 1:178 fsy0  1
c c
length of a reinforced concrete beam, which is given as
the following relationship: vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u  2
u C f f
u Mu CCcs þ 2:356 bCf c fsy0 þ 1:178 fsy0  1
Cost ¼ ½bðd þ d1 Þ  As Cc þ As Cs þ ½2ðd þ d1 Þ þ bCf doptimum u
¼t  c c
 
C f f Cf
ð1Þ 0:9fy b CCcs þ 1:178 bCf c fsy0 þ 0:59 fsy0  1 1 þ 2 bC c
c c

ð7Þ
Simplifying, we get:
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  ffi


 u
Cf Cs u bM 1 þ 2
fsy
Cost ¼ bCc 1 þ 2 d þ Cc  1 As u u fc0

bCc Cc AsðoptimumÞ ¼t  
Cf fsy f
  Cs
0:9fsy Cs þ 1:178 bCc f 0 þ 0:59 fsy0  1
Cf c c
þ Cc d1 þ ð2d1 þ bÞ ð8Þ
bCc
The above equations are used to build a database for the
where Cc is the cost of concrete per unit volume; Cs is the
different designs for the beams and then they are used to
cost of steel per unit volume; Cf is the cost of formwork
train the neural network.
per unit peripheral area; b is the width of the beam; d is
the effective depth of the beam; d1 is the cover to the
centroid of tensile reinforcement and As is the cross-
3. Optimisation of reinforced fibrous concrete beams
sectional area of tensile reinforcement.
The constraints for the optimisation problem are the
Concrete usually presents low tensile strength and
flexural strength, which can be represented as
insufficient ductile behaviour. Because of these defi-


fy ciencies prestressing has been applied in concrete mem-
Mu 6 / pbd 2 fy 1  0:59p 0 ð2Þ bers. However, the cost of production and equipment as
fc
well as the cost of labour for prestressing are compara-
where fc0 is the compressive strength of concrete; fy is the tively high. Alternatively, addition of steel fibres into
tensile strength of steel; p is the steel ratio, given by concrete has been found to increase tensile strength and
 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381
improve ductile behaviour of concrete members with
relatively low cost. Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC)
is a concrete made of hydraulic cement with aggregates
and is reinforced with discontinuous discrete steel fibres.
In typical applications, ductile steel fibre is randomly
dispersed throughout the brittle low strength concrete to
improve tensile strength, ductility and fracture tough-
ness of reinforced concrete.
In late 1960Õs and early 1970Õs steel fibre concrete had
been extensively studied and tested for the improvement
of concrete strength as well as to reduce sizes and weight
of concrete members. The early use of steel fibrous
concrete includes building slabs, road and airfield
pavements. However, it had very little distribution to
structural design and construction at its early use. This
fact is mainly due to the lack of its analysis and design
methods as well as the relatively low amount of study on
steel fibre [3]. The vast majority of steel fibrous concrete
in that period had been constructed in the United States
with some relatively minor applications in Europe,
Australia, India, and Taiwan [4].
Since 1980Õs, there have been several vast develop-
ments on steel fibre concrete. Besides the improvement
of tensile strength and ductility, a number of recent in-
vestigations have shown that steel fibres also have the
ability to increase the flexural strength, bending moment
capacity, impact resistance, energy absorption, and
shear strength to reinforced concrete beams. Swamy and
Al-TaÕan [5] reported that the presence of fibres in
concrete showed evidence of increasing of flexural stiff-
ness and significant decreasing of the number of cracks
in concrete. Narayanan and Darwish [6] reported the
results from their experiment that 1% by volume of steel
fibre used in a concrete beam increased up to 170% of
ultimate shear strength.
In 1999, Khuntia et al. [7] reported that careful
proportion of high strength fibre steel presences in
concrete reduces cracks and improves post-cracking
Fig. 2. Behaviour of rectangular reinforced fibre concrete beams at ultimate moment.
375
tensile strength of hardened concrete itself. In addition,
their study has shown that high strength steel fibre can
replace the vertical stirrups in RC structural members.
As conventional stirrups require relatively high labour
input to bend and fix in place, such a replacement will
result in reducing the construction time and cost, espe-
cially in periods of high labour cost. Today there has
been wide use of steel fibrous concrete in many appli-
cations such as airport and highway pavement, indus-
trial flooring, bridge deck, parking area and structural
members that need high shear resistance.
This section presents the optimisation of reinforced
fibrous concrete beams in accordance with AS3600.
3.1. Analytical studies
The basic design assumptions of rectangular rein-
forced fibered concrete is represented in Fig. 2.
The nominal flexural strength of fibrous concrete
simply supported beam is given as the following rela-
tionship [4,8]



a a h a a
Mn ¼ As fy d  þ rt b h  þ  ð9Þ
2 b1 2 2b1 2
and
As fy
b
þ rt h
a¼ ð10Þ
0:85fc0 þ br1t
where Mn is the nominal bending moment of cross-sec-
tion, As is the area of steel reinforcement, a is the depth
of rectangular stress block, rt is the tensile stress in fi-
brous concrete, b is the beam width, d is the distance
from the top fibre to the centroid of the steel bar, h is the
height of the beam, and b1 is the factor of 0.65–0.85,
depending on the concrete compressive strength [4].
Paramasivam and Lin [8] suggested that b1 ¼ 0:9. This
study takes b1 as 0.9.
376 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381

The ductility requirement specifies that the reinforc- Z ¼ Cs ðchÞ þ Cs As þ Cu ð2h þ bÞ þ Cf RIðbhÞ
ing bar area, As , should be less than 0.75Asb , where

1
Asb ¼ pb ðbdÞ and pb is the steel ratio at balance condi- þ Cm Am ð2h þ bÞ ð19Þ
S
tion. The maximum reinforcement is given by


  subject to constraints
0:85fc0 b1 þ rt ec rt h
ðAs Þmax ¼ 0:75bd 
fy ec þ ey fy d M  /Mn 6 0 ð20Þ
ð11Þ
pmin bd  As 6 0 ð21Þ
The minimum reinforcing bar is given by


1:4 bmin  b 6 0 ð22Þ
ðAs Þmin ¼ bd ð12Þ
fy
b  bmax 6 0 ð23Þ
The effective tensile strength of fibrous concrete (MPa)
can be as
dmin  d 6 0 ð24Þ
0:00772l
rt ¼ ð13Þ
df qf Fbe d  dmax 6 0 ð25Þ
or
RImin  RI 6 0 ð26Þ
rt ¼ lðRIÞ ð14Þ

where Fbe is the bond efficiency of fibres varies from 1.0 RI  RImax 6 0 ð27Þ
to 1.2 [9], l is the fibre length (mm), df is the fibre di-
ameter (mm), qf is the percent by volume of steel fibres, where Cc is the unit cost of concrete, Cs is the unit cost of
RI is the reinforcing index, ðl=df Þqf , and l is a constant reinforcing bar, Cf is the unit cost of steel fibres, Cu is the
corresponding to Fbe [9], i.e. rt =RI. unit cost of labour, M is the applied moment, S is the
The ultimate shear strength of a fibre reinforced centre-to-centre spacing of shear reinforcement.
concrete beam with web reinforcement can be expressed For a given problem, values of fc0 , fy , the width and
as the maximum height of concrete section are known.
After the completion of the optimisation process, the
Vn ¼ Vf þ Vs ð15Þ optimum value of area of steel, depth of steel, beam
and width, area of stirrups, spacing of stirrups, moment ca-
pacity, resisted shear and minimum value of total cost
Am fy d are obtained.
Vs ¼ ð16Þ
S
Narayanan and Darwish [6] and Sharma [10] suggested
the shear stress of fibrous concrete as the following 4. Applications
equation:

0:25 4.1. Neural network for optimum design of beams
2 d
vf ¼ ft0 ð17Þ
3 a The developed database for the optimum design of
beams, which are based on the equations above, were
and ft0 , can be obtained from AS3600 used to train a neural network. The design input to
pffiffiffiffi
ft0 ¼ 0:4 fc0 ð18Þ the problem includes: applied moment, M ; concrete
strength, fc0 ; yield strength of steel reinforcement, fy ;
where Vn is the nominal shear stress of fibre reinforced beam width, b; maximum depth of beams, hm ; unit cost
concrete section, Vf is the shear stress of fibrous con- of concrete, Cs ; unit cost of steel reinforcement, Cs ; and
crete, Vs is the shear stress due to web reinforcement, and unit cost of formwork, Cf . The design output includes:
ft0 is the tensile strength of concrete based on splitting optimum steel ratio poptimum ; optimum area of rein-
cylinder test. forcement, AsðoptimumÞ ; optimum effective depth of beams,
doptimum ; and optimum unit cost of beams Coptimum .
3.2. Optimisation model Two alterative networks were considered. In the first
case, the cost of concrete, cost of steel and cost of
The objective function Z for steel reinforced fibrous formwork are not parts of inputs for a network. They
concrete beams subjected to bending and shear can be are taken as fixed values, which are specified by the user.
formulated as The neural network is presented in Fig. 3.
 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381
Fig. 3. Model of backpropagation for alternative 1 of optimum
design of RC beams.
The network parameters are: number of training
samples is 550, number of input layer neurons is 5,
number of hidden layer neurons is 10, number of output
layer neurons is 4, type of backpropagation is Leven-
berg–Marquardt backpropagation, activation function
is Sigmoidal function, learning rate is 0.01, number of
epochs is 3874 and sum-square error achieved is 0.0001.
The network was tested with 50 samples. It has an
average error of 2.71%. The actual outputs and the
outputs from the networks of each sample are graphi-
cally represented in Fig. 4 and the decrease in sum-
square error is presented in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4. Total cost of beams alternative 1 of optimum design of
RC beams.
377
Fig. 5. The decrease of sum-square error of the network al-
ternative 1 of optimum design of RC beams.
In the second alternative, the cost of concrete, cost of
steel and cost of formwork were the considered inputs.
Unit cost of concrete and the unit cost of steel rein-
forcement is $129/m3 and $1075/t [11] or $8730/m3 , re-
spectively. Unit cost of formwork is $68/m2 . Because
these costs are used for input, this work has adjusted the
range of )10% and þ10% of the real cost.
Network parameters used are as follows. The number
of training samples is 550; number of input layer neu-
rons is 8; number of hidden layer neurons is 10; number
of output layer neurons is 4; type of backpropagation
is Levenberg–Marquardt backpropagation; activation
function is sigmoidal function; learning rate; 0.01; num-
ber of epochs is 3000; sum-square error achieved is 0.08.
The neural network is presented in Fig. 6.
The network had been tested with 50 samples and
yielded the average error of 6.1%. The results are pre-
sented in Fig. 7 and the decrease in sum-square error is
presented in Fig. 8.
4.2. Cost optimisation of steel fibrous reinforced concrete
beams
In order to minimise tensile reinforcement, shear re-
inforcement, depth and total cost of steel fibrous rein-
forced concrete beams, a neural network is constructed.
Simply supported rectangular beams design are imple-
mented in accordance with AS3600.
The 14 input variables are: applied moment ðM Þ,
Nm; applied shear ðV Þ, N; concrete strength ðfc0 Þ, MPa;
yield strength of steel reinforcement ðfy Þ, MPa; initial
guessed area of tensile reinforcement ðAs Þ, mm2 ; length
of steel fiber ðlf Þ, mm; diameter of steel fiber ðdf Þ, mm;
percent by volume of steel fibre to concrete ðpf Þ; mini-
mum depth of beams ðdmin Þ, mm; maximum depth
of beams ðdmax Þ, mm; minimum width of beams ðbmin Þ,
mm; maximum width of beams ðbmax Þ, mm; maximum
378 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381
Fig. 6. The model of backpropagation for cost optimisation of
rectangular beams for alternative 2.
Fig. 7. Total cost of beams alternative 2 of optimum design of
RC beams.
reinforcing index by volume of steel fibre ðRImin Þ; and
minimum reinforcing index by volume of steel fibre
ðRImax Þ.
It is assumed in the design that a minimum of shear
reinforcement is required. The algorithms will search for
the minimum of objective function in the space of six
design variables (outputs). These are: optimal area of
tensile reinforcement ðAs Þ, mm; optimal width of beams
ðbÞ, mm; optimal depth of beams ðdÞ, mm; optimal
Fig. 8. Decrease of sum-square error of the network of alter-
native 2 of optimum design of RC beams.
spacing of stirrup ðSÞ, mm; ultimate flexural strength of
beams ðMu Þ, kN m; and total cost of beams, $/m.
The network has 14 input neurons, 8 hidden neurons
and 6 output neurons. The network parameters are:
number of training samples is 604; number of input layer
neurons is 14; number of hidden layer neurons is 8;
number of output layer neurons is 6; type of back-
propagation is: Levenberg–Marquardt backpropaga-
tion; activation function is Sigmoidal function; learning
rate is 0.01; number of epochs is 450; and sum-square
error achieved is 0.001.
The network used in this application had been tested
with 100 samples and yields an average error of 6.68%.
Figs. 9–12 present comparison between conventional
design and designs obtained from the neural network.
5. Discussion
5.1. Types of network
Five different learning algorithms of backpropaga-
tion are considered in this study. Each of these algo-
rithms has been tested with the problems in this study.
Pure backpropagation is found to be extremely slow in
learning. Backpropagation with momentum and with
adaptive learning can be said to be the solution to a slow
network. However, pure backpropagation with small
learning rate shows a low possibility of oscillation.
Backpropagation with momentum and with adaptive
learning tend to oscillate after a large learning set is
used. Backpropagation with Levenberg–Marquardt up-
dating rule and fast learning backpropagation were
found to have capability to solve all the problems. The
distinction of backpropagation with Levenberg–Mar-
quardt updating rule to other algorithms is that back-
 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381 379

Fig. 9. Area of tensile reinforcement generated by the network and from conventional method for the fibre reinforced concrete beams.

Fig. 10. Bending moment capacity of fibre reinforced concrete beams generated by the network and from conventional method.

Fig. 11. Total cost of fibre reinforced concrete beams generated by the network and from conventional method.

propagation with Levenberg–Marquardt updating rule Marquardt updating rule spent fewer epochs and less
consumes a significantly large amount of memory. In most time to converge. For example, when the first applica-
cases, it was found that backpropagation Levenberg– tion was tested with fast backpropagation, the network
380 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381
Fig. 12. Decrease of sum-square error of the network of cost
optimisation of fibre reinforced concrete beams.
took 50,000 epochs to converge with an error of 0.02
and consumed 7 h. When Levenberg–Marquardt up-
dating rule was used, the network took 800 epochs to
reach 0.025 of error with 5 h of time consumed in the
same platform. According to Demuth and Beale [12] the
Levenberg–Marquardt updating rule is more effective
than the delta rule, which is used in regular backprop-
agation such as backpropagation with momentum or
fast learning backpropagation. Form this study it is also
found that even though Levenberg–Marquardt updating
rule works effectively in all the applications, there is one
major adverse effect. That is this algorithm requires ex-
tremely large amount of RAM.
5.2. Number of hidden layers of networks
The backpropagation simulator in this study is re-
stricted to two hidden layers, which yields a total of four
layers. Therefore, the observation of the effect of the
number of hidden layers of networks on their perfor-
mance is restricted to two layers. From this study, each
problem was tested with both one hidden layer and two
hidden layers and it did not show any significant dif-
ference in terms of accuracy but it did show the differ-
ence in terms of time required for learning. For example
in the optimisation of SFRC, there are 14 neurons at the
input layer, eight neurons at the hidden layer and six
neurons at the output layer. It is found that when one
hidden layer was added, the time consumed increased
from 6 to 17 h to reach an error of 0.001. Therefore, all
optimal networks in this study consist of one hidden
layer.
5.3. Number of samples
The number of samples is another important factor
that determines how well a network learns. A large
number of samples usually provides a network more
necessary features to capture because there are more
cases available for a network to differentiate. The
number of samples usually depends on the characteris-
tics of a problem. In some cases, a large amount of
samples does not guarantee that a network can learn
better than with smaller samples. This situation was
found in the first application. Initially, 1000 samples
were used to train a network. Then 100, 200, 300, 400,
500, 700, 800, 1000 and 1400 of sample were tested and
the results show that the average of percent error of the
network that was tested by 200, 500 and 1000 were not
much different. This study assumes that the major rea-
son for this situation is because the necessary features of
that application are easy to be captured by the learning
algorithm, even though the network architecture is rel-
atively complex.
However, for applications that have more complex
network architectures, such as the second application,
the number of samples did affect the performance of the
network itself. The test started by using 100, 200, 400,
500, 550 with fixed number of epochs and the result
show that the number of samples of 100 did not lead the
network to converge. When the number of samples was
increased, the network had the ability to reach a lower
error goal. It was also found that training a network
with fewer samples often led to early convergence. This
is because the goal error had reached but some features
were not captured. When that network was tested, it
gave inaccurate output. Apart from increasing the
number of training samples, decreasing error goal and
increasing the number of epochs can be done to obtain
more accuracy.
It is found that there is a trade off between the per-
formance of a network and time consumed. The per-
formances of a network are found to increase with the
suitable increase of the number of samples, learning time
and the number of hidden layer neurons. Meanwhile, the
increase of these parameters also increases consumed
time.
6. Conclusions
This paper studies and discusses new forms of com-
puting, neural networks, which are increasingly used in
various areas including science and technology, educa-
tion, business and military. In civil engineering fields
alone, neural networks are extensively investigated be-
cause they show some special features to extract signi-
ficant information from a massive set of data and the
ability to cope with ill-defined problems, which are
common problems in civil engineering applications.
Beam structures are chosen for this study and the
area involved is concrete beam design and cost optimi-
sation. Beam design aims to estimate the best dimen-
 M.N.S. Hadi / Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 373–381
sions, depth and width of its cross-section, and the cross-
sectional area of reinforcement based on the Australian
Standard AS3600. Cost optimisation of concrete beam is
to minimise the cost of material such as concrete, rein-
forcement and formwork, by optimising the beamÕs di-
mensions and its area of reinforcement, while satisfying
all the requirements, namely strength and serviceability.
The second application is the optimum design of fibre
reinforced concrete beams.
Several problems were encountered during training
the network. The most significant problem was found to
be the uncertainty of outputs due to the great difference
in values between output variables. Obviously, this
problem occurs in the second application for which the
range of one output is significantly small while the range
of another output is extremely large. This situation
causes the output with the greatest range to have the
highest effect on the sum-square error. Therefore, the
outputs with greatest ranges from the network are close
to the output from conventional method, while the
outputs with smallest range from the network behave
differently. The effect of this problem is usually dimin-
ished by increasing the networkÕs learning time, adjust-
ing learning rate and reducing error goal.
From this study, neural networks are found to be
superior to existing conventional methods in many
ways. It was found that neural networks reduce the
overall time required for implementations by a signifi-
cant amount when compared with existing conventional
methods. One of the major reasons that contribute to
this advantage is that each network requires the solution
of relatively simple set of equations to solve all kinds of
problems while conventional methods may use more
elaborate set of equations. Moreover, the performance
of each proposed network includes the accuracy of
381
outputs and the ease of use is satisfactory. With careful
implementations, neural networks will be proficient to
solve a vast number of structural engineering problems.
References
[1] AS3600. Australian standard for concrete structures.
Standards Australia. N. Sydney, 1994.
[2] Al-Salloum YA, Siddiqi GH. Cost-optimum design of
reinforced concrete beams. ACI Struct J 1994;91(6):647–
55.
[3] Casanova P, Rossi P. Analysis and design of steel fibre
reinforced concrete beams. ACI Struct J 1997;94(5):595–
603.
[4] Ezeldin AS, Hsu AT. Optimization of reinforced fibrous
concrete beams. ACI Struct Concr 1992;89(1):106–14.
[5] Swamy RN, Al-TaÕan SA. Deformation and ultimate
strength in flexure of reinforced concrete beams made
with steel fiber concrete. ACI Struct J 1981;78(5):3395–
405.
[6] Narayananand R, Darwish IYS. Use of steel fibers as shear
reinforcement. ACI Struct J 1987;84(3):216–27.
[7] Khuntia M, Stojadinovic B, Goel SC. Shear strength of
normal and high-strength fiber reinforced concrete beams
without stirrups. ACI Struct J 1999;96(2):283–9.
[8] Paramasivam P, Lin TY. Shear and moment capacity of
reinforced steel-fibre-concrete beams. Mag Concr Res
1987;39(140):148–60.
[9] Shah SP. Design consideration for steel fiber reinforced
concrete. ACI Struct J 1988;85(12):563–80.
[10] Sharma AK. Shear strength of steel fiber reinforced
concrete beams. ACI Struct J 1986;83(4):624–8.
[11] Rawlinsons. Australian construction handbook, Perth:
Rawhouse Publishing Ltd; 1999.
[12] Demuth H, Beale M. Neural network toolbox for use with
MATLAB. MA: The Mathworks, Inc; 1995.