On March 7, 2025, Professor Daniel Dias from the University of Grenoble Alpes in France visited our institute to hold an academic exchange meeting. AcademicianChen Xiangsheng, Dean of the College of Civil and Transportation Engineering and the Future Underground City Research Institute at Shenzhen University, met with the guest and presided over the meeting. Professor Su Dong, Vice Dean of the Research Institute, along with relevant faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, and doctoral students, also attended the meeting. The exchange was held in Room 1007 of the Zhili Building in the Yuhai Campus (South Area).

Professor Daniel Dias began the session with an academic presentation titled “Application of Artificial Intelligence for Predicting Settlements Induced by Earth Pressure Balance Shield Tunneling.”

The report begins with the safety risks that are prone to be triggered by Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) shield tunneling. It introduces an intelligent model based on the White Whale Optimization Algorithm (BWO-KELM). The interpretability of the model is elaborated through methods such as Feature Importance (FI) and Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP). A visualization program is established to optimize the safety and rationality of tunnel construction design through advanced algorithms and visualization technologies.

Academician Chen Xiangsheng extended a warm welcome and sincere gratitude to Professor Daniel Dias for his visit. He expressed his anticipation for the active initiation of multidimensional and in-depth cooperation and exchanges in the future. He also emphasized the importance of strengthening the cultivation of an international talent pool and jointly infusing new vitality into the scientific research progress and innovation in related fields.

During the exchange meeting, the participating students and faculty members engaged in an in-depth discussion with Professor Daniel Dias on technical issues related to tunnel engineering and intelligent algorithms.