Prediction of blast-induced air overpressure: a hybrid AI-based predictive model Danial Jahed Armaghani & Mohsen Hajihassani & Aminaton Marto & Roohollah Shirani Faradonbeh & Edy Tonnizam Mohamad Received: 30 April 2014 /Accepted: 29 September 2015 # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 Abstract Blast operations in the vicinity of residential areas usually produce significant environmental prob- lems which may cause severe damage to the nearby areas. Blast-induced air overpressure (AOp) is one of the most important environmental impacts of blast op- erations which needs to be predicted to minimize the potential risk of damage. This paper presents an artificial neural network (ANN) optimized by the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) for the prediction of AOp induced by quarry blasting. For this purpose, 95 blasting operations were precisely monitored in a granite quarry site in Malaysia and AOp values were recorded in each operation. Furthermore, the most influential parameters on AOp, including the maximum charge per delay and the distance between the blast-face and monitoring point, were measured and used to train the ICA-ANN model. Based on the generalized predictor equation and considering the measured data from the granite quarry site, a new empirical equation was developed to predict AOp. For comparison purposes, conventional ANN models were developed and compared with the ICA- ANN results. The results demonstrated that the pro- posed ICA-ANN model is able to predict blast- induced AOp more accurately than other presented techniques. Keywords Blast operation . Environmental impacts . Air overpressure . ANN . ICA Introduction Blasting has some undesirable environmental impacts such as ground vibration, air overpressure, flyrock, dust, and fumes (Pathak et al. 1999; Singh et al. 2006; Fişne et al. 2011; Jahed Armaghani et al. 2015). These envi- ronmental impacts may affect nearby areas if the blasting operation is done close to buildings, factories, and other structures or is not designed well (Kuzu 2008). Air overpressure (AOp) resulting from blasting is an Environ Monit Assess (2015) 187:666 DOI 10.1007/s10661-015-4895-6 D. Jahed Armaghani (*) Department of Geotechnics and Transportation, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia e-mail: danialarmaghani@gmail.com M. Hajihassani Construction Research Alliance, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia e-mail: mohsen_hajihassani@yahoo.com A. Marto Department of Geotechnics and Transportation, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia e-mail: aminaton@utm.my R. Shirani Faradonbeh Young Researchers and Elit Club, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran e-mail: roohollah.shirani@modares.ac.ir E. T. Mohamad Department of Geotechnics and Transportation, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia e-mail: edy@utm.my