Neural Comput & Applic (2012) 21:13411347
DOI 10.1007/s00521-011-0573-y
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Application of an expert system to predict thermal conductivity
of rocks
Manoj Khandelwal
Received: 20 October 2010 / Accepted: 11 March 2011 / Published online: 31 March 2011
Springer-Verlag London Limited 2011
Abstract In this paper, an attempt has been made to
predict the thermal conductivity (TC) of rocks by incor-
porating uniaxial compressive strength, density, porosity,
and P-wave velocity using support vector machine (SVM).
Training of the SVM network was carried out using 102
experimental data sets of various rocks, whereas 25 new
data sets were used for the testing of the TC by SVM
model. Multivariate regression analysis (MVRA) has also
been carried out with same data sets that were used for the
training of SVM model. SVM and MVRA results were
compared based on coefficient of determination (CoD) and
mean absolute error (MAE) between experimental and
predicted values of TC. It was found that CoD between
measured and predicted values of TC by SVM and MVRA
was 0.994 and 0.918, respectively, whereas MAE was
0.0453 and 0.2085 for SVM and MVRA, respectively.
Keywords Support vector machine (SVM)  Thermal
conductivity  UCS  Density  Porosity  P-wave 
Multivariate regression analysis (MVRA)
1 Introduction
Knowledge of the thermal transport properties of rocks has
become most important with the widespread interest in
thermal processes, e.g., underground fluid-bearing reser-
voirs. Some of these processes include thermal methods of
M. Khandelwal (&)
Department of Mining Engineering, College of Technology
and Engineering, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture
and Technology, Udaipur 313001, India
e-mail: mkhandelwal1@gmail.com
enhanced oil recovery, management of geothermal reser-
voirs, and underground disposal of nuclear waste. The
design of thermal-insulating materials also depends upon
the heat transfer characteristics of porous media [1]. The
thermal properties are particularly important in very hot
and cold countries [24]. Insulation of heating/cooling sys-
tems is very important to save energy, especially in
underdeveloped countries with limited resources. The use
of natural stone with low thermal conductivity (TC) in
buildings could provide energy savings [25].
It widely influences the energy transfer between adja-
cent rocks in underground mines and in insulation of the
building by providing an energy-efficient solution. Energy
saving is the important part of any national energy strategy,
and its conservation for underdeveloped countries with
inadequate resources is even more important [8]. Tem-
perature changes induce thermal stresses causing thermal
strains in the rock and concrete of structure [22].
Thermal conductivity of rocks can be determined by
conducting laboratory tests or under in situ conditions, as in
a borehole or deep well, by adopting transient heat method
[20]. To achieve this, a known heating power generated
from a source of known geometry is employed, and the
temperature change with time is recorded [3].
The coefficient of thermal conductivity is a measure of
the rate Q at which heat flows through a material and can
be determined from (1).
QH
k 1
ADTt
where k thermal conductivity (W/mK), Q amount of heat
(W/m2), h thickness of material in the heating direction
(m), A area of heated surface (m2), DT temperature dif-
ference between surfaces of material (0C), and t heating
time (h).
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Thermal conductivity is an intrinsic material property
for which the values depend on several factors [11]:
1. Chemical composition of the rock,
2. Fluid content (type and degree of saturation of the
pores); the presence of water increases the thermal
conductivity (i.e., enhances the flow of heat),
3. Atmospheric or external pressure (a high pressure
increases the thermal conductivity by closing cracks
that inhibit heat flow),
4. Temperature, and
5. Isotropy and homogeneity of the rock.
Work did by earlier researchers reveals that the types of
rock and physico-mechanical and dynamic properties have
the most significant effect on the thermal conductivity of
rocks and concrete [2, 8, 9]. The TC of rock not only
depends on chemical and mineral composition and texture
but also on porosity, density, structure, and fabric of the
material as well as degree of crystallization [5, 6, 19].
Rocks with a crystalline structure show higher heat con-
duction than amorphous and vitreous rocks of the same
composition [7].
Precise measurements of the thermal conductivity of
rocks are difficult to make and are very time-consuming. A
number of researchers have made attempts to develop
relationships to estimate the thermal conductivity of rocks
by taking into account its different physico-mechanical
properties.
Knowing a greater applicability of thermal property in
the geotechnical engineering, a lot of work has been carried
out to find out thermal conductivity of rock and to predict it
by a definite simple and reliable model. Progress has been
made in recent years in the ability to predict the thermal
conductivity, but the state of the art is deficient in many
ways. On the basis of detailed investigation, a viable
approach for the prediction of thermal conductivity is
necessary. An artificial intelligence (AI) comes in handy to
fulfill this problem [19].
Over the past few years, various artificial intelligent (AI)
techniques such as hidden Markov models, artificial neural
networks, and support vector machines have been used in
various mining, civil, and geo-engineering applications.
Conventional pattern recognition method and artificial
neural networks (ANN) requires sufficient number of
samples, which are sometimes difficult to obtain. Support
vector machines (SVM) are based on structural risk mini-
mization principle and have very good generalization with
few data samples.
Due to its multidisciplinary nature, SVM is becoming
popular among the researchers, planners, designers, etc., as
an effective tool for the accomplishment of their work [12
14]. SVM have superiority in solving problems in which
many complex parameters influence the process and
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Neural Comput & Applic (2012) 21:13411347
results, when process and results are not fully understood
and where historical or experimental data are available.
The prediction of TC is also of this type.
This is a new-generation learning system based on
advances in statistical learning theory, enabling nonlinear
mapping of an n-dimensional input space into a higher-
dimensional feature space where, for example, a linear
classifier can be used. The SVM can train nonlinear models
based on the structural risk minimization principle that
seeks to minimize an upper bound of the generalization
error rather than minimize the empirical error as imple-
mented in neural networks [21]. This induction principle is
based on the fact that the generalization error is bounded by
the sum of the empirical error and a confidence interval
term depending on the VapnikChervonenkis (VC)
dimension. Based on this principle, SVM will achieve an
optimal model structure by establishing a proper balance
between the empirical error and the VC confidence inter-
val, leading eventually to a better generalization perfor-
mance than neural network models. An additional merit of
SVM is that the training of SVM is a uniquely solvable
quadratic optimization problem, and the complexity of the
solution in SVM depends only on the complexity of the
desired solution, rather than on the dimensionality of the
input space. Thus, SVM uses a nonlinear mapping, based
on a kernel function, to transform an input space to a high-
dimension space and then look for a nonlinear relation
between inputs and outputs in the higher-dimension space
[4]. SVM not only has a rigorous theoretical background
but also can find global optimal solutions for problems with
small training samples, high dimension, nonlinearity, and
local optima. Originally, SVM was developed for pattern-
recognition problems [15, 17, 18]. Recently, SVM has been
shown to give good performance for a wide variety of
problems, such as nonlinear regression.
In the present paper, an attempt has been made to predict
the TC of rocks by SVM taking into account the uniaxial
compressive strength (UCS), density, porosity, and P-wave
velocity. To find the suitability and applicability of SVM,
predicted results were also compared by multivariate
regression analysis results.
2 The philosophy of support vector machine
Support vector machine (SVM) is a supervised machine
learning method based on the statistical learning theory. It
is a very useful method for classification and regression.
Pattern recognition and classification using SVM is
described here in brief. A more detailed description can be
found in various literatures [4, 21].
Figure 1 shows triangle and square classes of sample
points that can be separated by a linear classifier. Hyper-
Neural Comput & Applic (2012) 21:13411347 1343

plane P is one of the separation planes that separate P1 and So, the optimal hyper-plane separating the data can be
P2 classes. P1 and P2 (shown by dashed lines) are the planes obtained as a solution to the following optimization
that are parallel to P and pass through the sample points problem
closest to P in these two classes. Margin is the distance
1
between P1 and P2. The SVM tries to place a linear Minimize kwk2 4
2
boundary between the two different classes and orient it in
such way that the margin is maximized, which results in Subject to yi wT xi b  1 i 1; 2; . . .; N 5
least generalization error. The nearest data points used to
To find the solution of above quadratic optimization
define the margin are called support vectors.
problem, the saddle point of the Lagrange function has to
This is implemented by reducing the margin between P1
be determined. The Lagrangian function for the
and P2 to a convex optimization problem: minimizing a
optimization problem is given as
quadratic function under linear inequality constraints8.
Consider a training sample set {(xi, yi)}; i = 1 to N, where 1 XN
N is the total number of samples. Among all linear sepa- MinimizeLw;b;k kwk2  ki yi wT xi b  1 6
2 i1
ration planes that separate input samples into two classes,
which separation plane will have the smallest generaliza- where ki C 0 are the Lagrange multipliers. To find the saddle
tion error is determined. Let us assume the samples can be point, one has to minimize this function over w and b and to
classified into two classes, namely triangle class and square maximize it over the nonnegative Lagrange multipliers ki C
class. Labels yi = -1 and yi = ?1 are associated with 0. Setting the derivatives of L with respect to w and b to zero,
triangle class and square class, respectively. If data are we have:
linearly separable, the hyper-plane f(x) = 0 that separates
the given data is given as oLw; b; k XN XN
w yi ki xi 0 ) w y i ki x i 7
X
N ow i1 i1
f x wi xi b 0 2
i1 oLw; b; k X N
yi ki 0 8
where w is an N-dimensional vector. The vector w defines a ob i1
direction perpendicular to the hyper-plane. The scalar
value b moves the hyper-plane parallel to it. This value is Substituting results from (7) and (8) into (6),
sometimes called the bias (or threshold). A distinct X
N
1X N
separating hyper-plane should satisfy the constraints Wk ki  yi yj ki kj xi :xj 9
i1
2 i;j1
f x i  1 if yi 1
f xi   1 if yi 1 Notation L(w,b,k) is changed to W(k) to reflect the last
or it can be presented in complete equation transformation. To construct the optimal hyper-plane,
coefficients ki are to be determined that maximize the
yi f xi yi wT x b  1 i 1; 2; . . .; N 3 function (9). Thus, by solving the dual optimization
problem, the coefficients koi can be obtained which is
Since the resulting geometric margin will be equal to
required to express the w from (7).
1/||w||2, vector w that minimizes ||w||2 under constraints (4)
is related to the vector that forms the optimal hyper-plane. X
N
1X N
Maximize Wk ki  yi yj ki kj xi :xj 10
i1
2 i;j1
8
>
> k 0
Margin < i
Subject to XN : 11
>
> ki yi 0; i 1; 2; . . .; N
:
i1

The value of bo is chosen to maximize the margin and is

calculated as
P2 {wT x + b = 1}
P {wT x + b = 0} maxyi 1 \wo :xi [ minyi 1 \wo :xi [
P1 {wT x + b = 1}
bo 12
2
Fig. 1 Hyper-plane classification This leads to decision function

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1344 Neural Comput & Applic (2012) 21:13411347

!
X
N network. Input and output parameters for training and
f x sign ki yi xi :xj b 13 testing of the model with their range are given in Table 1.
i;j1 A list of sample data for training and testing of the SVM
When the training data are not linearly separable in feature and MVRA model are given in Tables 2 and 3,
space, the optimization problem cannot be solved, and no respectively.
feasible solution will exist. To allow for the possibility of
samples violating constraints, slack variables (ni C 0) are
introduced. A classifier which generalizes well is then 4 Prediction of TC by SVM
found by controlling both the classifier capacity (via ||w||)
and the number of training errors. The optimal hyper-plane There are a number of algorithms available, but sequential
separating the data can be obtained as a solution to the minimal optimization (SMO) is a new algorithm for the
following optimization problem. training of SVM, proposed by John [10]. It is a simple
algorithm that can quickly solve the SVM quadratic pro-
1 XN
gramming problem without any extra matrix storage and is
Minimize kwk2 C ni 14
2 i1
exempt from using any numerical quadratic programming
( optimization steps. SMO decomposes the overall quadratic
yi wT xi b  1  ni programming problem into subproblems of quadratic pro-
Subject to 15
ni  0; i 1; 2; . . .; N gramming by using Osunas theorem to ensure conver-
gence. There are two components in SMO: an analytic
where C is a constant representing error penalty. Rewriting method for solving the two Lagrange multipliers and a
the above optimization problem in terms of Lagrange heuristic one for choosing multipliers in optimization.
multipliers leads to the problem The advantage of SMO lies in the fact that solving for
X two Lagrange multipliers can be done analytically. Thus,
N
1X N
Maximize Wk ki  yi yj ki kj xi :xj 16 numerical quadratic programming optimization is avoided
i1
2 i;j1
completely. The inner loop of the algorithm can be
8 expressed in a small code, rather than invoking an entire
< 0  ki  C
>
quadratic programming library routine. Even though more
Subject to X N 17
>
: ki yi 0; i 1; 2; . . .; N optimization subproblems are needed in the solving algo-
i1 rithm, the overall time expense is much reduced due to the
quick solution of each subproblem. In addition, SMO
The sequential minimal optimization (SMO) algorithm
requires no extra matrix storage. Thus, very large SVM
gives an efficient way of solving the dual problem arising
training problems can fit inside the memory of an ordinary
from the derivation of the SVM. SMO decomposes the
personal computer or workstation. Because no matrix
overall quadratic programming problem into quadratic
algorithm is involved in SMO, it is less susceptible to
programming subproblems.
numerical precision problems [10].
For training and testing of data set, Weka software [23]
is used, which is a collection of machine learning algo-
3 Data Set rithms for data mining tasks. The algorithms can be applied
directly to a data set. Weka contains tools for data pre-
There are number of researchers who have done extensive processing, classification, regression, clustering, associa-
work to determine the physico-mechanical and dynamic tion rules, and visualization.
properties vis-a-vis thermal conductivity of different rocks. To test and validate the SVM model, a data set, which
A total of 127 data sets of TC, UCS, density, porosity, and was not used while training the network, was employed.
P-wave velocity were taken from various published liter- The results are presented in this section to demonstrate the
atures [16, 19, 25]. performance of the networks. Coefficient of determination
After the selection of data sets, these were divided into (CoD) and mean absolute error (MAE) between the pre-
training and testing data sets using sorting method to dicted and measured values is taken as the measure of
maintain statistical consistency. Data sets for validation performance.
were extracted at regular intervals from the sorted data- Figure 2 illustrates the measured and predicted TC on
base, and the remaining data sets were used for the training 1:1 slope line. All predicted data points are very close to
and testing. In the present study, 102 data sets (approxi- the 1:1 slope line. This clearly indicates the ability of SVM
mately 80%) were used for the training, and rest 25 data for the prediction of TC. Here, CoD is as high as 0.994,
sets (approximately 20%) were chosen for the testing of the whereas MAE is 0.0453.

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Neural Comput & Applic (2012) 21:13411347 1345

Table 1 Input and output parameters of the network with their range, mean, and standard deviation
S. No. Input parameter Range Mean Standard deviation

1. UCS (MPa) 28.2147.5 67.664 25.543

2. Density (t/m3) 1.892.99 2.64 0.216
3. Porosity (%) 0.573.24 2.014 0.716
4. P-wave (m/s) 27586472 4288.6 987.452
5. Thermal conductivity (W/mK) 0.543.12 1.37 0.759

Table 2 Sample data set used for the training of SVM and MVRA model
S. No. UCS (MPa) Density (t/m3) Porosity (%) P-wave (m/s) Thermal conductivity (W/mK)

1. 78.2 2.71 1.4 4,920 1.48

2. 38.7 2.43 3.01 2,950 0.6
3. 120.8 2.97 0.86 5,870 3.01
4. 34.8 2.45 2.89 3,020 0.61
5. 44.5 2.52 2.74 3,330 0.72

Table 3 Sample data set used for the testing of SVM and MVRA model
S. No. UCS (MPa) Density (t/m3) Porosity (%) P-wave (m/s) Thermal conductivity (W/mK)

1. 116.9 2.96 1.1 5,680 2.91

2. 69.7 2.77 2.13 3,480 1.05
3. 57 2.51 2.48 3,580 0.84
4. 70.8 2.78 1.86 4,200 1.2
5. 74.4 2.68 1.84 4,210 1.45

one independent variable, then multivariate regression

analysis is used to get the best-fit equation. Multiple
regressions analysis solves the data sets by performing least
squares fit. It constructs and solves the simultaneous
equations by forming the regression matrix and solving for
the coefficient using the backslash operator. The multi-
variate regression analysis (MVRA) has been done by same
data sets and same input parameters that we used in SVM.
The equation for the prediction of TC by MVRA is
TC 1:1864 0:006  UCS 0:1493  Density
Fig. 2 Measured versus predicted TC by SVM
0:0134  Porosity 0:0004  P  wave: 18

5 Prediction of TC by multivariate regression analysis
The purpose of multiple regressions is to learn more about
the relationship between several independent or predictor
variables and a dependent or criterion variable. The goal of
regression analysis is to determine the values of parameters
for a function that cause the function to best fit a set of data
observations provided. In linear regression, the function is
a linear (straight-line) equation. When there is more than
Figure 3 shows the measured and predicted TC on 1:1
slope line with CoD. Here, CoD between measured and
predicted TC is 0.918, whereas MAE is 0.2085.
6 Results and discussion
Figure 4 shows a graph of measured and predicted TC by
SVM and MVRA. Here, prediction by SVM is closer to the

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Fig. 3 Measured versus predicted TC by MVRA
Fig. 4 Comparison of measured and predicted TC by SVM and
MVRA
measured TC, whereas prediction by MVRA has a wide
variation.
It can be seen that SVM demonstrates superiority over
MVRA. Table 4 shows the CoD and MAE of TC predicted
by SVM and MVRA. It can be said that prediction capa-
bility of SVM is quite remarkable and compares well to
measured values. This shows superiority of SVM over
MVRA. Figure 5 demonstrates the error graph between
measured and predicted TC by SVM and MVRA models.
7 Conclusions
In this paper, support vector machine was used to predict
the thermal conductivity of rocks. It is evident from the
present study that SVM model has good prediction capa-
bility to predict the thermal conductivity of rocks using
simple rock parameters, like uniaxial compressive strength,
density, porosity, and P-wave velocity. Based on the study,
it is established that the SVM approach seems to be the
better option for close and appropriate prediction of ther-
mal conductivity. SVM results indicate very close agree-
ment for the thermal conductivity with the measured data
sets as compared to multivariate regression analysis.
Coefficient of determination and mean absolute error
between measured and predicted TC were taken as
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Neural Comput & Applic (2012) 21:13411347
Table 4 CoD and MAE of TC by SVM and MVRA
Model CoD MAE
SVM 0.994 0.0453
MVRA 0.918 0.2085
Fig. 5 Error graph between measured and predicted TC by SVM and
MVRA
performance measure. It was found that coefficient of
determination between measured and predicted TC was
0.994 and 0.918 by SVM and MVRA, respectively,
whereas mean absolute error was 0.0453 and 0.2085 by
SVM and MVRA, respectively. This model will help to
avoid cumbersome experimental method for the determi-
nation of the thermal conductivity of the rock.
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