Prediction of uniaxial compressive strength of limestone from ball mill grinding characteristics using supervised machine learning techniques

Abstract

Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) is a fundamental parameter in rock engineering, governing the stability of foundations, slopes, and underground structures. Traditional UCS determination relies on laboratory tests, but these face challenges such as high-quality core sampling, sample preparation difficulties, high costs, and time constraints. These limitations have driven the adoption of indirect approaches for UCS prediction. This study introduces a novel indirect method for predicting uniaxial compressive strength, harnessing the grinding characteristics of a ball mill as predictive variables through supervised machine learning techniques. The correlation between grinding characteristics and UCS was examined to determine whether a linear relationship exists between them. A hybrid support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) algorithm is applied to identify the critical grinding parameters influencing UCS. Four supervised machine learning models viz., Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), k-Nearest Neighbor Regression (k-NNR), Support Vector Regression (SVR), and Random Forest Regression (RFR) were developed for UCS prediction, with hyperparameter optimization performed using RandomisedSearchCV technique. The Random Forest model outperformed others as the best prediction model, achieving a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.95, followed by SVR (R² = 0.87), k-NNR (R² = 0.82), and MLR (R² = 0.758). Model robustness was further assessed using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Variance Accounted For (VAF). Internal validation by means of K-fold cross validation and external validation with independent datasets confirmed generalization capability, showing an average prediction error of ± 10%. The findings demonstrate that combining grinding characteristics with machine learning offers an accurate, cost-effective alternative to conventional UCS testing, with significant practical applications in rock engineering. © The Author(s) 2025.