Application of Relevance Vector Machine for Prediction of Ultimate Capacity of Driven Piles in Cohesionless Soils

Abstract

This paper examines the potential of relevance vector machine (RVM) in prediction of ultimate capacity of driven piles in cohesionless soils. RVM is a Bayesian framework for regression and classification with analogous sparsity properties to the support vector machine (SVM). In this study, RVM has been used as a regression tool. It can be seen as a probabilistic version of SVM. In this study, RVM model outperforms the artificial neural network (ANN) model based on root-mean-square-error (RMSE) and mean-absolute-error (MAE) performance criteria. It also estimates the prediction variance. An equation has been developed for the prediction of ultimate capacity of driven piles in cohesionless soils based on the RVM model. The results show that the RVM model has the potential to be a practical tool for the prediction of ultimate capacity of driven piles in cohesionless soils.