Exploring the potential of artificial intelligence techniques in prediction of the removal efficiency of vortex tube silt ejector

A vortex tube silt ejector is a curative hydraulic structure used to remove sediment deposits from canals and is recognized as one of the most efficient substitutes for physically removing canal sediment. The spatially varied flow in the channel and the rotational flow behavior in the tube make the silt removal process complex. It is even harder to accurately predict the silt removal efficiency by traditional models accurately. However, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning approaches have emerged as robust substitutes for studying complex processes. Therefore, this research makes use of AI approaches; support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), random tree (RT), and multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) to compute the vortex tube silt ejection efficiency using the laboratory data sets. The outcomes of the artificial intelligence (AI)-based techniques also were compared with traditional models. It was found that the RT model (root mean square error, RMSE = 2.165, Nash Sutcliffe efficiency, NSE = 0.98) outperforms the other applied approaches which had relatively more significant result errors. The sensitivity analysis of the process depicts the extraction ratio as the key parameter in the computation of vortex tube silt ejector removal efficiency. The findings of the AI-based approaches discussed in the current study might be helpful for hydraulic engineers as well as researchers in the assessment of the removal efficiency of vortex tube silt ejectors.