International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 3 Issue 4, December 2013

doi: 10.14355/ijnese.2013.0304.04

www.ijnese.org

Prediction of the Equivalent Radon Exhalation

Rate of Uranium Ore-rock in the Course of
Mine Ventilation Based on GA-SVM
Yongjun Ye *1,2, Yali Zhao1, Dexin Ding 2, Liheng Wang1, Nanbin Fan1
School of Environmental Protection and Safety Engineering, University of South China
Hengyang, Hunan421001, PR China
1

Key Discipline Laboratory for National Defense for Biotechnology in Uranium Mining and Hydrometallurgy
University of South China. Hengyang, Hunan421001, PR China
2

*yongjunye@163.com
Abstract
The process of radon exhalation of uranium ore-rock in the
course of mine ventilation is complicated, dynamic and
nonlinear. The calculation basis of radon exhalation is the
equivalent radon exhalation rate, which contributes to
reasonably determining the ventilation air quantity in
uranium mines, avoiding unnecessary cost. In fact, the
equivalent radon exhalation rate is not a constant in the
course of uranium mine ventilation, but a variable
influenced by ventilation rate, wind pressure and other
factors. In this paper, taking the ventilation rate with the
corresponding wind pressure as the input vector and the
equivalent radon exhalation rate as the output vector, the
paper established a GA-SVM prediction model of the
equivalent radon exhalation rate of uranium ore-rock during
mine ventilation. Results show that it is reasonable and
viable to utilize the GA-SVM model to forecast the
equivalent radon exhalation rate of uranium ore-rock during
mine ventilation.
Keywords
Equivalent Radon Exhalation Rate; GA-SVM; Forecasting Model;
Uranium Mine; Ventilation

Introduction
The mechanical ventilation is an effective way to
control concentrations of radon and its daughter
products in underground uranium mines. The
calculation basis of ventilation and radon exhalation in
underground uranium mines is the equivalent radon
exhalation rate, which means the radon exhalation
amount of the unit equivalent emanation area. The
equivalent radon exhalation rate is the ultimate
characterization parameter in the process of radon
exhalation of uranium ore-rock and a fundamental
parameter in the uranium mine ventilation design. In
Technical Regulations for Ventilation and Radon

Exhaust in Underground Uranium Mines which is a

standard for nuclear industry in China, the value of
equivalent radon exhalation rate is a conservative
constant. However, a great deal of measured data of
radon exhalation rate on the ventilation scene have
shown that the value of equivalent radon exhalation
rate in design is over twice higher than the measured
one, causing that the measured ventilation air quantity
is two times of the actual needed air quantity and that
the ventilation cost accounts for about 15% of the total
production cost of uranium mines, which is three
times of the other metal mines . Therefore, determining
the equivalent radon exhalation rate of uranium orerock in the course of mine ventilation is very
important in theory and practice for reasonably
determining the ventilation air quantity in uranium
mines, to reduce ventilation costs and improve radiation
environment in underground uranium mines.
Radon exhalation is a very complex physical process.
Recently, studies on the law of radon exhalation were
mainly based on the exhalation theory of radon
diffusion and permeation . According to the theory,
its known that radon exhalation rate is influenced by
many factors including emanation coefficient,
permeability rate, ventilation rate and wind pressure,
etc.. The fact indicates that the equivalent radon
exhalation rate in the course of uranium mine
ventilation is not a constant, but a variable influenced
by ventilation rate, wind pressure and other factors. So
in order to predict the equivalent radon exhalation
rate, a GA-SVM model was established. Support
Vector Machine models based on the statistical
learning theory are a new class of models that can be
used to predictvalues. It has been found that SVM
possesses the well-known ability of being universal
approximators of any multivariate function to any
103

www.ijnese.org

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 3 Issue 4, December 2013

desired degree of accuracy. Genetic algorithm is a

random optimized method which simulates natural
selection and genetic variation in the course of
biological evolution. GA has a great searching ability
for the whole situation which doesnt rely on specific
solving model, and it has been widely used in seeking
for optimal solution.

space using a nonlinear mapping , and then a linear

model can be constructed in the feature space as
(1)
where w is a m-dimensional coefficient vector and b is
a bias term. Then the SVM empirical risk can be
obtained as follows

In view of the advantages of GA-SVM, taking the

ventilation rate with the corresponding wind pressure
as the input vector and the equivalent radon exhalation
rate as the output vector, the paper established a GASVM predicting model of the equivalent radon
exhalation rate of uranium ore-rock in the course of
mine ventilation. The prediction model was applied to
forecast the equivalent radon exhalation rate of
uranium ore-rock in the course of mine ventilation in a
uranium mine gallery 317. And the results of GA-SVM
model have been discussed in this paper.

where is a regularization constant and the cost

function defined by

(2)

(3)

is also called Vapniks -insensitive loss function,

where is a positive hyper-parameter. It can be shown
that the minimizing function has the following form

(4)

and the kernel

with
function k(xi, x) describes the inner product in the Ddimensional feature space

Introduction of GA-SVM

(5)

Principle of SVM
SVM is a novel learning machine introduced first by
Vapnik based on the structural risk minimization
principle from computational learning theory. The
basic idea of SVM is the following: the nonlinear
transformation defined by an inner product function
transforms the input space to a high dimensional
feature space in which a nonlinear relationship is
examined between the input variable and the output
variable. Fig. 1 is the sketch of SVM.

Prediction results

K(x2, x)

K(x1, x)

(x1)

(x2)

x1

X2

K(xn, x)

(x)

(xn)

Xn
x

Inner product
kernel function

Nonlinear mapping

It is important to note that the features need not be

computed; rather what is needed is the kernel function
that is very simple and has a known analytical form.
The only condition required is that the kernel function
has to satisfy Mercers condition. Some of the mostly
used kernels include polynomial, Gaussian, and
sigmoidal. In this paper, the focus is put on the widely
used radial basis function (RBF), which is defined as
(6)
where is the kernel parameter that is always greater
than zero.
Note also that for Vapniks -insensitive loss function,
the Lagrange multipliers
are sparse, i.e. they
result in nonzero values after the optimization (2) only
if they are on the boundary, which means that they
satisfy the KarushKuhnTucker conditions. The
coefficients
are obtained by maximizing the
following form

Support vectors
Vector to predict

FIG. 1 THE SKETCH OF SVM

(7)
subject to

Standard SVM Algorithm

where C is a positive hyper-parameter that is usually

called regularization parameter.

The main objective of regression is to approximate a

function g(x) from a given noisy set of samples
, where
is an input vector, and
is its corresponding desired output. The input
vector is first mapped into a high dimensional feature

Only a number of coefficients

will be different
from zero, and the data points associated to them are
called support vectors. Parameters C and are free
and have to be decided by the user. Computing b
requires a more direct use of the KarushKuhnTucker

104

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 3 Issue 4, December 2013

conditions that lead to the quadratic programming

problems stated above. The key idea is to pick those
values
for a point xk on the margin, i.e.
or
in the open interval (0, C). One xk would be sufficient
but for stability purposes, it is recommended that one
takes the average over all points on the margin. More
detailed description of SVM for regression can be
found in Refs. .
Genetic Algorithm
Since the SVM performance heavily depends on the
right setting of the regularization factor C, the
insensitive parameter , and the kernel functional
parameter , these three parameters need to be set
properly by the user. According to the experience
from numerical experiments, C, and exhibit a
(strong) interaction. As a consequence, they should be
optimized simultaneously, rather than separately.
GA is an adaptive heuristic search algorithm premised
on the evolutionary ideas of natural selection and
genetic. The basic concept of GA is designed to
simulate processes in natural system necessary for
evolution, specifically those that follow the principles
first laid down by Charles Darwin of survival of the
fittest. As such, they represent an intelligent
exploitation of a random search within a defined
search space to solve the problem. First pioneered by
John Holland in the 60s, GA has been widely studied,
experimented with and applied in many fields in
engineering worlds. Not only does GA provide an
alternative methods to solve problem, it consistently
outperforms other traditional methods in most of the
problems link. Many of the real world problems
involved finding optimal parameters, which might
prove difficult for traditional methods but ideal for GA.

www.ijnese.org

are the value of the

input vector, and
ventilation rate and the corresponding wind pressure,
respectively;
is the corresponding output vector,
representing the equivalent radon exhalation rate. GA
helps to find out the optimization of C, , and .
Start GA-SVM
Define: Initial range of C, , and ; Size of population;
Rcros, Fcros , Pmut; Maximum generations

Create initial population

Perform SVM on each chromosome in population

Yes
Max. Generation?
No
Create next population: Rank fitness
scaling; Roulette wheel selection; Heuristic
crossover; Uniform mutation

Optimal C, , and for SVM

FIG. 2 THE PROCEDURE OF OPTIMIZATION OF C, And

Case Study
Matlab7.0 is used for model implementation in this
paper.
The Processing of Data
Because the values of ventilation rate, wind pressure
and equivalent radon exhalation rate have different
units, its necessary to normalize these data. How to
make it is as follows:
Changing the data into [0,1].

According to the ability of GA, the parameters

optimization course applied in this paper is illustrated
in Fig. 2. In order to obtain an objective function which
can reflect SVM generalization performance without
the help of test data, the cross-validation technique is
adopted in this work.

where
is the j data in the i input or output vector ,
is the min variation in the i input or output
vector,
is the max variation in the i input or
output vector.

Modelling Procedure of GA-SVM

Sampling Data and Training of GA-SVM

In specific underground uranium mine, the grade of

uranium ore and uranium-radium equilibrium
coefficient are determined, so the equivalent
emanation area will be excluded. In this paper, the
ventilation rate with the corresponding wind pressure
is the input vector of the SVM prediction model, and
the equivalent radon exhalation rate is the output
vector. In the
,
is the

The sample data come from 14 groups measured data

of radon exhalation rate in a uranium mine gallery 317,
shown in Table 1. The average uranium ore grade of
the gallery is 0.0418%, the balance coefficient of
radium and uranium is 1.103, the emanation area of
the gallery is 164.25m2, and the equivalent area
emanation is 7.576 m21%. The former 12 groups
measured data is input data in the model to training it,

(8)

105

www.ijnese.org

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 3 Issue 4, December 2013

the later 2 groups measured data is test data. The

maximum total error is 0.0001 and maximum training
times is 2000. Optimal C and for the GA-SVM model
have been shown in Table 2, which also lists the
optimal C and for SVM model and PSO-SVM model
developed for the same case.

shown in Table 3. Comparison of the forcasting results

of the three models is listed in Table 4.
TABLE 3 COMPARISON OF MEAN SQUARE ERROR AND SQUARED
CORRLATION COEFFICIENT

Parameter
Mean squared error
Squared correlation
coefficient

TABLE 1 THE EQUIVALENT RADON EXHALATION RATE RESULTS OF A

URANIUM MINE GALLERY 317 AFTER CLEAN-UP

Serial
Number

Ventilation
Rate(m3/s)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

1.9730
2.7930
3.1030
2.7040
2.9990
1.0030
0.9590
1.6450
0.7880
1.4080
1.3700
1.3200
1.0580
1.3580

TABLE 2 OPTIMAL C AND

Parameter
C

Wind
Pressure
(mmHg)
0.2800
0.4050
0.1800
0.1000
0.1800
0.2050
0.1800
0.0800
0.4500
0.0550
0.4050
0.7430
0.4800
0.1680

Equivalent Radon
Exhalation Rate (108Ci/(sm21%))
0.1771
0.1888
0.4391
0.3483
0.4402
0.1398
0.0739
0.2241
0.0639
0.1725
0.1374
0.0836
0.0936
0.1936

FOR SVM, PSO-SVM AND GA-SVM

SVM
16
0.0206

PSO-SVM
27.6770
0.0100

GA-SVM
44.2724
0.3557

Test of Training Results

All the sampling data are tested respectively by GASVM, showing that compared with the results of SVM
and PSO-SVM models, the prediction data of GA-SVM
are much better. Among the three prediction modles,
the mean squared error value of GA-SVM model is the
smallest, and the squared correlation coefficient value
of GA-SVM model is the largest, which have been

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

106

Experimental
Data(10-8Ci/
(sm21%))
0.1771
0.1888
0.4391
0.3483
0.4402
0.1398
0.0739
0.2241
0.0639
0.1725
0.1374
0.0836
0.0936
0.1936

SVM Model
Forecasting Value Relative
(10-8Ci/(sm21%)) Error(%)
0.2248
26.93
0.3395
79.82
0.4291
-2.28
0.3696
6.12
0.4101
-6.84
0.1165
-16. 67
0.1158
56.70
0.2087
-6.87
0.0634
-0.78
0.1824
5.74
0.1274
-7.28
0.0755
-9.69
0.0837
-10.58
0.1600
-17.36

PSO-SVM

GA-SVM

0.865685

0.861683

0.976276

Besides, a BP-ANN forecasting model (the number of

neurons in hidden layer is preliminarily determined as
five, and the stimulating function in both the hidden
and output layer is Sigmoid function as
.)
and a multivariate nonlinear regression model
(
, where Jd is equivalent
radon exhalation rate, Q air quantity and h wind
pressure) have ever been built for the same case. The
prediction results are listed in Table 5. Obviously, the
forecasting data of GA-SVM are better than that of
Multivariate Nonlinear Regression Forecasting Model,
but little worse than that of BP-ANN model.
Conclusion
The equivalent radon exhalation rate is complex with
multiple influencing factors. In this paper, through
establishing the GA-SVM predicting model and
comparison with other models, two conclusions come
out. On one hand, the predicting ability of GA-SVM
model is the best among the three SVM models. On
the other hand, the prediction results of GA-SVM
model are not as good as those of BP-ANN model, but
much better than those of multivariate nonlinear
regression model. In general, it is reasonable and
viable to utilize the GA-SVM model to forecast the
equivalent radon exhalation rate of uranium ore-rock
in the course of mine ventilation.

TABLE 4 COMPARISON OF FORECASTING RESULTS OF

Serial
Number

SVM

0.0021763 0.00208481 0.000352763

SVM, PAO-SVM AND GA-SVM MODELS

PSO-SVM Model
Forecasting Value
Relative
(10-8Ci/(sm21%))
Error(%)
0.2256
27.39
0.3290
74.26
0.4095
-6.74
0.3586
2.96
0.3931
-10.70
0.1117
-20.10
0.1101
48.99
0.2091
-6.69
0.0542
-15.18
0.1819
5.45
0.1282
-6.70
0.0761
-8.97
0.0804
-14.10
0.1597
-17.51

GA-SVM Model
Forecasting Value
Relative
(10-8Ci/(sm21%))
Error(%)
0.1673
-5.53
0.1985
5.14
0.4493
2.32
0.3583
2.87
0.4116
-6.50
0.0986
-29.47
0.0840
13.67
0.2137
-4.64
0.0744
16.43
0.1827
5.91
0.1473
7.21
0.0932
11.48
0.1223
30.66
0.1694
-12.5

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 3 Issue 4, December 2013

TABLE 5 COMPARISON OF FORECASTING RESULTS OF

Serial
Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Experimental
Data(10-8Ci/
(sm21%))
0.1771
0.1888
0.4391
0.3483
0.4402
0.1398
0.0739
0.2241
0.0639
0.1725
0.1374
0.0836
0.0936
0.1936

www.ijnese.org

MNR, BP-ANN AND GA-SVM MODELS

Multivariate Nonlinear Regression Model

GA-SVM Model
Forecasting Value (10Relative Forecasting Value Relative
8Ci/(sm21%))
Error(%) (10-8Ci/(sm21%)) Error(%)
0.1890
6.73
0.1673
-5.53
0.2621
38.86
0.1985
5.14
0.4124
-6.07
0.4493
2.32
0.3600
3.34
0.3583
2.87
0.3882
-11.81
0.4116
-6.50
0.1175
15.95
0.0986
-29.47
0.1180
59.62
0.0840
13.67
0.1988
-11.28
0.2137
-4.64
0.0770
20.58
0.0744
16.43
0.1784
3.44
0.1827
5.91
0.1142
16.91
0.1473
7.21
0.0737
-11.88
0.0932
11.48
0.0870
7.02
0.1223
30.66
0.1512
-21.95
0.1694
-12.5

BP-ANN Model
Forecasting Value
Relative
(10-8Ci/(sm21%))
Error(%)
0.1780
0.51
0.1869
-0.98
0.4402
0.26
0.3477
-0.19
0.4395
0.16
0.1345
-3.79
0.0788
6.59
0.2222
-0.84
0.0692
8.36
0.1717
0.45
0.1405
2.23
0.0790
-5.54
0.0989
5.70
0.1966
1.55

Keerthi, S. and Lin, C.-J.. Asymptotic behaviors of support

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was financially supported by Chinese

National Natural Science Fund Projects (No.11105069),
Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 09JJ6078) and Hunan province science and
technology program (No. 2011SK3085).

vector

machines

Gaussian

kernel.

Neural

Computation, 15(2003): 16671689.

Mahur, A.K., Kumar, Rajesh, Sengupta, D. and Prasad,
Rajendra. Estimation of radon exhalation rate, natural
radioactivity and radiation doses in fly ash samples from
Durgapur

REFERENCES

with

thermal

power

plant,

West

Bengal,

India.Journal of Environmental Radioactivity99(2008):

Cherkassky, V. and Ma, Y.. Practical selection of SVM

parameters and noise estimation for SVM regression.
Neural Networks17(2004):113126.

1289-1293.
Moharram, B.M., Suliman, M.N., Zahran, N.F., Shennawy,
S.E. and El Sayed, A.R.. 238U,

Deng, Xingsheng. Application of statistical learning

theories in earth measuring. phD diss., Wuhan
University, 2007.

Th content and radon

232

exhalation rate in some Egyptian building materials.

Annals of Nuclear Energy45(2012):138143.
Sahoo, B.K., Mayya, Y.S. and Sapra, B.K.. Radon exhalation

El-Dine, N.Walley, El-Shershaby, A., Ahmed, F. and AbdelHaleem, A.S.. Measurement of radioactivity and radon

studies in an Indian uranium tailings pile. Radiation

Measurements45(2010):237-241.

exhalation rate in different kinds of marbles and

Sahoo, B.K., Sapra, B.K. and Gaware, J.J.. A model to

granites. Applied Radiation and Isotopes55(2001): 853

predict radon exhalation from walls to indoor air based

860.

on the exhalation from building material samples.

Faheem, Munazza and Matiullah. Radon exhalation and its

dependence on moisture content from samples of soil
and

building

materials. Radiation

Measurements

43(2008):1458 1462.

Science of the Total Environment409(2011):2635-2641.

stn, B., Melssen, W. J., Oudenhuijzen, M. and Buydens, L.
M. C.. Determination of optimal support vector
regression parameters by genetic algorithms and simplex

Glasmachers, T. and Igel, C.. Maximum-gain working set

optimization. Analytica Chimica Acta54(2005): 292305.

selection for support vector machines. Journal of

Vapnik, V. N.. An overview of statistical learning theory.

Machine Learning Research7(2006):1437-1466.

Kecman, V. Support Vector Machines An Introduction. In:

IEEE Trans Neural Network 10(1999): 988-999.

Wang, Qianyu, Wu, Hengshan and

Tang, Zhuangli.

Support Vector Machines: Theory and Applications. ed.

Uranium Mining Safety and Protection. Changsha:

By L. Wang, 1-48. New York: Springer-Verlag Berlin

Central South University Press, 2003.

Heidelberg, 2005.

Ye, Yongjun, Ding, Dexin and Zhou, Xinhuo. Theoretical

107

www.ijnese.org

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Volume 3 Issue 4, December 2013

study on maximal driving length of dummy driving drift

function approximation based on chaos optimization.

in uranium mines. Paper presented at the Progress of

Journal

The 2008 International Symposium on Safety Science and

19(2008):191197.

Technology, China, September, 2008.

of

Systems

Engineering

and

Electronics

Zhou, Xinhuo, Deng, Wenhui and Wu, Gang. Technical

Ye, Yongjun, Ding, Dexin, Li, Xiangyang and Zhou, Xinhuo.

Regulations for Ventilation and Radon Exhaust in

Application of BP-ANN in forecasting the equivalent

Underground Uranium Mines. EJ/T359-2006, China,

radon exhalation rate of uranium ore-rock in the course

2006.

of mine ventilation. Proceedings - 2009 International

Zhou, Xinhuo. Approach to increasing techno-economic

Conference on Computational Intelligence and Software

effects of ventilation in uranium mines. Uranium

Engineering , 2009.

Mining and Metallurgy 8(1989): 11-17.

Yuan, X. F. and Wang, Y. N..Parameter selection of SVM for

108