Tensile Strength Prediction of Empty Palm Oil Bunch Fiber Composite with Artificial Neural Network

As the leading global producer of palm oil, Indonesia encounters substantial environmental challenges arising from the waste generated by empty palm oil fruit bunches (EPOFB). This research aims to develop an accurate Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model to predict the tensile strength of EPOFB fiber-reinforced composites. The method involves two types of ANN, namely Radial Basis Function (RBF) and Backpropagation, with testing using variations in immersion time, volume fraction, and length of EPOFB fibers. The research results show that both ANN models can predict tensile strength with a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) below 10%. However, the Backpropagation ANN shows superior performance with a training MAE of 0.0078 and a testing MAE of 0.45, compared to the RBF ANN, which has a training MAE of 0.371 and a testing MAE of 0.53. In conclusion, ANN Backpropagation is superior in prediction accuracy and characterization efficiency of EFB fiber-reinforced composites, offering an economical solution and supporting sustainable palm oil waste management.