Adaptive neuro-fuzzy prediction of the optimum parameters of protective spur dike

This study proposes a new approach for determining the optimum dimensions of a protective spur dike to mitigate the amount of scour around existing spur dikes. Several parameters of a protective spur dike were studied to determine their optimum values, including length, angle, and distance. Also the effect of changes of flow intensity and sediment size were examined. The main objective of this article was to predict the optimum values of protective spur dikes to attain the best performance. To predict the parameters of protective spur dikes for controlling the scour around spur dikes, we used the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system method to construct a process that simulates the optimal parameters of a protective spur dike, including the actual length of the protective spur dike, the actual length of the main spur dikes, the distance between the protective spur dike and the first spur dike, the angle between the protective spur dike and the direction of flow, the intensity of the flow, and median size of the bed sediments. This intelligent estimator was implemented using MATLAB/Simulink, and the performances were investigated. The simulation results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the developed method.