Evaluation and Prediction of Blast-Induced Ground Vibrations: A Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) Approach

Abstract

Ground vibration is one of the most hazardous outcomes of blasting. It has a negative impact both on the environment and the human population near to the blasting area. To evaluate the magnitude of blasting vibrations, it is important to consider PPV as a fundamental critical base parameter practice in terms of vibration velocity. This study aims to explore the application of different soft computing techniques, including a Gaussian process regression (GPR), decision tree (DT), and support vector regression (SVR), for the prediction of blast-induced ground vibration (PPV) in quarry mining. The three models were evaluated using classical mathematical evaluation metrics (R2, RMSE, MSE, MAE). The result shows that the GPR model achieves an excellent prediction result; with R2 = 0.94, RMSE = 0.0384, MSE = 0.0014, and MAE = 0.0265, it shows high accuracy in predicting PPV. The Shapley additive explanation (SHAP) results emphasize the importance of understanding the interactions between the various factors and their effects on the vibration assessment. The findings can inform the development of more sustainable and environmentally friendly models for predicting blasting vibrations. Using a GPR to simulate and predict blasting-induced ground vibrations is the study’s main contribution. The GPR can capture complicated, non-linear correlations in data, making it ideal for blast-induced ground vibrations, which are dynamic and nonlinear. By using a Gaussian process regression, we can help companies and researchers improve the safety and efficiency in blast-induced ground vibration environments.