Forecast of Airblast Vibrations Induced by Blasting Using Support Vector Regression Optimized by the Grasshopper Optimization (SVR-GO) Technique

Air overpressure (AOp) is an undesirable environmental effect of blasting. To date, a variety of empirical equations have been developed to forecast this phenomenon and prevent its negative impacts with accuracy. However, the accuracy of these methods is not sufficient. In addition, they are resource-consuming. This study employed support vector regression (SVR) optimized with the grasshopper optimizer (GO) algorithm to forecast AOp resulting from blasting. Additionally, a novel input selection technique, the Boruta algorithm (BFS), was applied. A new algorithm, the SVR-GA-BFS7, was developed by combining the models mentioned above. The findings showed that the SVR-GO-BFS7 model was the best technique (R2 = 0.983, RMSE = 1.332). The superiority of this model means that using the seven most important inputs was enough to forecast the AOp in the present investigation. Furthermore, the performance of SVR-GO-BFS7 was compared with various machine learning techniques, and the model outperformed the base models. The GO was compared with some other optimization techniques, and the superiority of this algorithm over the others was confirmed. Therefore, the suggested method presents a framework for accurate AOp prediction that supports the resource-saving forecasting methods.