Integration of a CNN-based model and ensemble learning for detecting post-earthquake road cracks with deep features

A safe and healthy infrastructure is essential for humanity. Maintenance and repair of roads, which are of great importance, especially in transportation, is essential. Roads can sometimes be damaged due to natural disasters or human factors. In this study, roads damaged as a result of the natural disaster and the 6 February 2023 Gaziantep-Kahramanmaras earthquakes, which had devastating/fatal consequences, were studied. In recent years, the use of machine learning methods in the automatic detection process of road cracks has become widespread. Here, deep learning architectures generally based on multilayer convolutional neural networks have become a popular solution, mainly thanks to their high discrimination power in visual data. In this study, it was aimed to automatically detect cracks on the roads in Gaziantep (Nurdagi) and Adiyaman provinces after the earthquake. The data set used in the experimental process consists of two categories: uncracked and cracked, and was collected by the researchers. ResNet152 deep learning architecture, traditional machine learning algorithms, and an ensemble learning (EL) model were used to classify cracks. Among the machine learning algorithms used in the experiments are support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors, Adaptive Boosting, and Naive Bayes. In the experimental process, ResNet152 architecture was used for feature extraction, and classification was carried out with machine learning algorithms. In addition, the EL method has been used to improve the success of machine learning algorithms. According to experimental results, the SVM algorithm and EL method gave the most successful results with 98.68% accuracy values. The proposed method can benefit experts in the automatic classification of road cracks. The study can contribute to activating rapid coordination and transportation networks in natural disasters that cause fatal and destructive causes, such as earthquakes.