Investigation of the Performance of Artificial Intelligence Methods in Estimating the Crest Settlement of Rockfill Dam with a Central Core

Unpredictable settlement of earth dams has led researchers to develop new methods such as artificial neural networks, wavelet theory, fuzzy logic, and a combination of them. These methods do not require time-consuming analyses for estimation. In this research, the amount of settlement in rockfill dams with a central core has been estimated using artificial intelligence methods. The data of 35 rockfill dams with a central core were used to train and validate the models. The artificial neural network, wavelet transform model, and fuzzy-neural adaptive inference system are the proposed models which were used in the present study. According to the results, the best model for an artificial neural network had two hidden layers, the first layer of 18 neurons and the second layer of 7 neurons, with the Tansig-Tansig activation function, with a coefficient of determination R 2 =0.4969. The best model for the fuzzy-neural inference system had the ring function (Dsigmoid) as a membership function, with three membership functions and 142 repetitions with a coefficient of determination R 2 =0.2860. Also, combining wavelet-neural network conversion with the coif2 wavelet function due to the more adaptation this function has to the input variables, the better the performance, and this function, with a coefficient of determination R 2 =0.9447, had the highest accuracy compared to other models.