Prediction of Net Effective Wind Pressure in Walls using Artificial Neural Network and Akaike Information Criterion

Wind forces on structures have the potential to cause significant damage. A database involving the distance from the ridge, enclosure classification, surface type, elevation above ground level, wind direction, basic wind speed, presence of wall/surface openings, and effective net wind pressure (ENWP) was created using computation fluid dynamics (CFD). This paper focuses on the development of a model for predicting ENWP using a backpropagation-artificial neural network (BP-ANN). Utilizing the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (LMA) and hyperbolic tangent sigmoid function (HTSF) as the model hyperparameters, the study investigated several network structures and the simulations revealed that the 7-20-1 is the best model among the topologies observed in this study. The results showed an R value of 0.99868, MSE and MAPE of 0000749 and 5.036%, respectively. Additionally, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) was used as another layer of metric to measure the effectiveness of the model. The least was observed in the 7-20-1 network structure indicating that this is the best among the topologies observed in this study. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis (SA) through Garson's Algorithm (GA) was performed to determine the relative contribution (RC) of the input parameters (IP) including the distance from the ridge, enclosure classification, surface type, elevation above ground level, wind direction, basic wind speed, and presence of wall/surface opening to the effective net wind pressure. The findings presented that the basic wind speed is the most significant parameter to the effective net wind pressure value. The results of this study can be utilized in considering appropriate configuration to minimize the effects of wind pressure in structures.