It is very important to keep structures and constructional elements in service during and after exposure to elevated temperatures. Investigation of the structural behaviour of different components and structures at elevated temperatures is an approach to manipulate the serviceability of the structures during heat exposure. Channel connectors are widely used shear connectors not only for their appealing mechanical properties but also for their workability and cost-effective nature. In this study, a finite element (FE) evaluation was performed on an authentic composite model, and the behaviour of the channel shear connector at elevated temperature was examined. Furthermore, a novel hybrid intelligence algorithm based on a feature-selection trait with the incorporation of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) algorithms has been developed to predict the slip response of the channel. The hybrid intelligence algorithm that uses artificial neural networks is performed on derived data from the FE study. Finally, the obtained numerical results are compared with extreme learning machine (ELM) and radial basis function (RBF) results. The MLP-PSO represented dramatically accurate results for slip value prediction at elevated temperatures. The results proved the active presence of the channels, especially to improve the stiffness and loading capacity of the composite beam. Although the height enhances the ductility, stiffness is significantly reduced at elevated temperatures. According to the results, temperature, failure load, the height of connector and concrete block strength are the key governing parameters for composite floor design against high temperatures.
Keywords: artificial intelligence; channel shear connector; elevated temperatures; feature-selection; multi-layer perceptron; prediction.