scholarly journals A Crack Identification Method for Concrete Structures Using Improved U-Net Convolutional Neural Networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Wenting Qiao ◽  
Hongwei Zhang ◽  
Fei Zhu ◽  
Qiande Wu

The traditional method for detecting cracks in concrete bridges has the disadvantages of low accuracy and weak robustness. Combined with the crack digital image data obtained from bending test of reinforced concrete beams, a crack identification method for concrete structures based on improved U-net convolutional neural networks is proposed to improve the accuracy of crack identification in this article. Firstly, a bending test of concrete beams is conducted to collect crack images. Secondly, datasets of crack images are obtained using the data augmentation technology. Selected cracks are marked. Thirdly, based on the U-net neural networks, an improved inception module and an Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling module are added in the improved U-net model. Finally, the widths of cracks are identified using the concrete crack binary images obtained from the improved U-net model. The average precision of the test set of the proposed model is 11.7% higher than that of the U-net neural network segmentation model. The average relative error of the crack width of the proposed model is 13.2%, which is 18.6% less than that measured by using the ACTIS system. The results indicate that the proposed method is accurate, robust, and suitable for crack identification in concrete structures.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 5758
Author(s):  
Xiaofeng Feng ◽  
Hengyu Hui ◽  
Ziyang Liang ◽  
Wenchong Guo ◽  
Huakun Que ◽  
...  

Electricity theft decreases electricity revenues and brings risks to power usage’s safety, which has been increasingly challenging nowadays. As the mainstream in the relevant studies, the state-of-the-art data-driven approaches mainly detect electricity theft events from the perspective of the correlations between different daily or weekly loads, which is relatively inadequate to extract features from hours or more of fine-grained temporal data. In view of the above deficiencies, we propose a novel electricity theft detection scheme based on text convolutional neural networks (TextCNN). Specifically, we convert electricity consumption measurements over a horizon of interest into a two-dimensional time-series containing the intraday electricity features. Based on the data structure, the proposed method can accurately capture various periodical features of electricity consumption. Moreover, a data augmentation method is proposed to cope with the imbalance of electricity theft data. Extensive experimental results based on realistic Chinese and Irish datasets indicate that the proposed model achieves a better performance compared with other existing methods.


Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 495
Author(s):  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Shupeng He ◽  
Shiyun Wa ◽  
Zhiqi Zong ◽  
Yunling Liu

Apple flower detection is an important project in the apple planting stage. This paper proposes an optimized detection network model based on a generative module and pruning inference. Due to the problems of instability, non-convergence, and overfitting of convolutional neural networks in the case of insufficient samples, this paper uses a generative module and various image pre-processing methods including Cutout, CutMix, Mixup, SnapMix, and Mosaic algorithms for data augmentation. In order to solve the problem of slowing down the training and inference due to the increasing complexity of detection networks, the pruning inference proposed in this paper can automatically deactivate part of the network structure according to the different conditions, reduce the network parameters and operations, and significantly improve the network speed. The proposed model can achieve 90.01%, 98.79%, and 97.43% in precision, recall, and mAP, respectively, in detecting the apple flowers, and the inference speed can reach 29 FPS. On the YOLO-v5 model with slightly lower performance, the inference speed can reach 71 FPS by the pruning inference. These experimental results demonstrate that the model proposed in this paper can meet the needs of agricultural production.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 6721
Author(s):  
Jinyeong Wang ◽  
Sanghwan Lee

In increasing manufacturing productivity with automated surface inspection in smart factories, the demand for machine vision is rising. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated outstanding performance and solved many problems in the field of computer vision. With that, many machine vision systems adopt CNNs to surface defect inspection. In this study, we developed an effective data augmentation method for grayscale images in CNN-based machine vision with mono cameras. Our method can apply to grayscale industrial images, and we demonstrated outstanding performance in the image classification and the object detection tasks. The main contributions of this study are as follows: (1) We propose a data augmentation method that can be performed when training CNNs with industrial images taken with mono cameras. (2) We demonstrate that image classification or object detection performance is better when training with the industrial image data augmented by the proposed method. Through the proposed method, many machine-vision-related problems using mono cameras can be effectively solved by using CNNs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Ivan Lorencin ◽  
Sandi Baressi Šegota ◽  
Nikola Anđelić ◽  
Anđela Blagojević ◽  
Tijana Šušteršić ◽  
...  

COVID-19 represents one of the greatest challenges in modern history. Its impact is most noticeable in the health care system, mostly due to the accelerated and increased influx of patients with a more severe clinical picture. These facts are increasing the pressure on health systems. For this reason, the aim is to automate the process of diagnosis and treatment. The research presented in this article conducted an examination of the possibility of classifying the clinical picture of a patient using X-ray images and convolutional neural networks. The research was conducted on the dataset of 185 images that consists of four classes. Due to a lower amount of images, a data augmentation procedure was performed. In order to define the CNN architecture with highest classification performances, multiple CNNs were designed. Results show that the best classification performances can be achieved if ResNet152 is used. This CNN has achieved AUCmacro¯ and AUCmicro¯ up to 0.94, suggesting the possibility of applying CNN to the classification of the clinical picture of COVID-19 patients using an X-ray image of the lungs. When higher layers are frozen during the training procedure, higher AUCmacro¯ and AUCmicro¯ values are achieved. If ResNet152 is utilized, AUCmacro¯ and AUCmicro¯ values up to 0.96 are achieved if all layers except the last 12 are frozen during the training procedure.


Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 624
Author(s):  
Stefan Rohrmanstorfer ◽  
Mikhail Komarov ◽  
Felix Mödritscher

With the always increasing amount of image data, it has become a necessity to automatically look for and process information in these images. As fashion is captured in images, the fashion sector provides the perfect foundation to be supported by the integration of a service or application that is built on an image classification model. In this article, the state of the art for image classification is analyzed and discussed. Based on the elaborated knowledge, four different approaches will be implemented to successfully extract features out of fashion data. For this purpose, a human-worn fashion dataset with 2567 images was created, but it was significantly enlarged by the performed image operations. The results show that convolutional neural networks are the undisputed standard for classifying images, and that TensorFlow is the best library to build them. Moreover, through the introduction of dropout layers, data augmentation and transfer learning, model overfitting was successfully prevented, and it was possible to incrementally improve the validation accuracy of the created dataset from an initial 69% to a final validation accuracy of 84%. More distinct apparel like trousers, shoes and hats were better classified than other upper body clothes.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5192
Author(s):  
Maira Moran ◽  
Marcelo Faria ◽  
Gilson Giraldi ◽  
Luciana Bastos ◽  
Larissa Oliveira ◽  
...  

Dental caries is an extremely common problem in dentistry that affects a significant part of the population. Approximal caries are especially difficult to identify because their position makes clinical analysis difficult. Radiographic evaluation—more specifically, bitewing images—are mostly used in such cases. However, incorrect interpretations may interfere with the diagnostic process. To aid dentists in caries evaluation, computational methods and tools can be used. In this work, we propose a new method that combines image processing techniques and convolutional neural networks to identify approximal dental caries in bitewing radiographic images and classify them according to lesion severity. For this study, we acquired 112 bitewing radiographs. From these exams, we extracted individual tooth images from each exam, applied a data augmentation process, and used the resulting images to train CNN classification models. The tooth images were previously labeled by experts to denote the defined classes. We evaluated classification models based on the Inception and ResNet architectures using three different learning rates: 0.1, 0.01, and 0.001. The training process included 2000 iterations, and the best results were achieved by the Inception model with a 0.001 learning rate, whose accuracy on the test set was 73.3%. The results can be considered promising and suggest that the proposed method could be used to assist dentists in the evaluation of bitewing images, and the definition of lesion severity and appropriate treatments.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Kaczmarek ◽  
Agnieszka Szymańska

Abstract Nonlinear structural mechanics should be taken into account in the practical design of reinforced concrete structures. Cracking is one of the major sources of nonlinearity. Description of deflection of reinforced concrete elements is a computational problem, mainly because of the difficulties in modelling the nonlinear stress-strain relationship of concrete and steel. In design practise, in accordance with technical rules (e.g., Eurocode 2), a simplified approach for reinforced concrete is used, but the results of simplified calculations differ from the results of experimental studies. Artificial neural network is a versatile modelling tool capable of making predictions of values that are difficult to obtain in numerical analysis. This paper describes the creation and operation of a neural network for making predictions of deflections of reinforced concrete beams at different load levels. In order to obtain a database of results, that is necessary for training and testing the neural network, a research on measurement of deflections in reinforced concrete beams was conducted by the authors in the Certified Research Laboratory of the Building Engineering Institute at Wrocław University of Science and Technology. The use of artificial neural networks is an innovation and an alternative to traditional methods of solving the problem of calculating the deflections of reinforced concrete elements. The results show the effectiveness of using artificial neural network for predicting the deflection of reinforced concrete beams, compared with the results of calculations conducted in accordance with Eurocode 2. The neural network model presented in this paper can acquire new data and be used for further analysis, with availability of more research results.


Author(s):  
Mirhat Medziti ◽  
Daia Zwicky

<p>According to Swiss code SIA 262 "Concrete structures", stirrups of reinforced concrete beams must "surround the tensile longitudinal reinforcement" and must "be anchored to mobilize the static height of internal forces". For existing concrete structures, Swiss code SIA 269/2 provides stirrup detailing requirements while limiting these directives for stirrup anchorage to the compression zone. In zones of negative bending, these requirements are often not satisfied for execution reasons. This question is addressed in a largely experimental Ra&amp;D project. Anchorage tests were performed and analyzed, with a total of 144 tests on 9 concrete beams. These underwent a longitudinal tensile force up to 1’000 kN to simulate transverse cracking at stirrup anchorages in negative flexure zones. The study parameters are crack width (0, 0.4 and 0.9 mm), stirrup diameter (10 and 14 mm), bar ribbing (smooth and ribbed) and hook angle (90°, 135°, 180° and straight bars). A design model based on the "tension chord model" (TCM) developed at ETH Zurich is proposed. This simple and practical design model has proved ist effectiveness to consider bond effects. Reduction factors for bar diameter (k<sub>Ø</sub>), relative bar ribbing (k<sub>fR</sub>), hook effect (k<sub>θ</sub>) and crack width (k<sub>w</sub>) were taken into account for calibration. Results of analytical calculations are coherent with experimental tests.</p>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document