Artificial Intelligence (AI) Applied in Civil Engineering

Abstract

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn significant attention with respect to its applications in several scientific fields, varying from big data handling to medical diagnosis. The use of AI is already present in our daily lives with several uses, such as personalized ads, virtual assistants, autonomous driving, etc. Not surprisingly, AI methodologies have found a wide range of uses and applications in engineering fields, including civil and structural engineering [1,2], with impressive results [3,4,5]. Figure 1 shows the research articles related to AI published in the field of civil engineering. In particular, these are results from the Scopus database (www.scopus.com, obtained on 2 June 2022), using the query "TITLE-ABS-KEY (("artificial intelligence" or "AI") and ("civil" or "structural" or "transportation" or "geotechnical" or "hydraulic" or "environmental" or "construction" or "shm" or "structural health")) and PUBYEAR > 1999 and (LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "ENGI"))", which returned 14,059 document results in total (for years from 2000 to 2022). The increase in AI studies with great acceleration shows that the use of AI in civil engineering is gaining momentum and will keep increasing in the coming years, bringing new innovations and applications.