Improving Data Quality with Advanced Pre-Processing of MWD Data

In geotechnical engineering, an accurate prediction is essential for the safety and effectiveness of construction projects. One example is the prediction of over/under-excavation volumes during drill and blast tunneling. Using machine learning (ML) models to predict over-excavation often results in low accuracy, especially in complex geological settings. This study explores how the pre-processing of measurement while drilling (MWD) data impacts the accuracy of ML models. In this work, a correlational analysis of the MWD data is used as the main pre-processing procedure. For each drilling event (single borehole), correlation coefficients are calculated and then supplied as inputs to the ML model. It is shown that the ML model’s accuracy improves when the correlation coefficients are used as inputs to the ML models. It is observed that datasets made from correlation coefficients help ML models to obtain higher generalization skills and robustness. The informational content of datasets after different pre-processing routines is compared, and it is shown that the correlation coefficient dataset retains information from the original MWD data.