Neural network evaluation of steel beam patch load capacity

This work presents a neural network modelling to forecast steel beam patch load resistance. In preceding studies, the results of a neural network system composed of four neural networks, have been compared and calibrated with experimental data and existing design formulae, showing a good agreement. Despite these results, the adopted system did not properly consider the differences in behaviour of slender, intermediate and compact beams. This paper introduces a new strategy based on a single neural network, which is trained with a different normalisation parameter. The neural network presented a maximum error value lower than 30%, while existing formulas presented errors greater than 40%.