Real-time analysis and prediction of shield cutterhead torque using optimized gated recurrent unit neural network

An accurate prediction of earth pressure balance (EPB) shield moving performance is important to ensure the safety tunnel excavation. A hybrid model is developed based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network. PSO is utilized to assign the optimal hyperparameters of GRU neural network. There are mainly four steps: data collection and processing, hybrid model establishment, model performance evaluation and correlation analysis. The developed model provides an alternative to tackle with time-series data of tunnel project. Apart from that, a novel framework about model application is performed to provide guidelines in practice. A tunnel project is utilized to evaluate the performance of proposed hybrid model. Results indicate that geological and construction variables are significant to the model performance. Correlation analysis shows that construction variables (main thrust and foam liquid volume) display the highest correlation with the cutterhead torque (CHT). This work provides a feasible and applicable alternative way to estimate the performance of shield tunneling.