Growing concerns on energy consumption of buildings by heating and cooling applications have led to a demand for improved insulating performances of building materials. The establishment of thermal property for a building structure is the key performance indicator for energy efficiency, whereas high accuracy and precision tests are required for its determination which increases time and experimental costs. The main scope of this study is to develop a model based on artificial neural network (ANN) in order to predict the thermal properties of concrete through its mechanical characteristics. Initially, different concrete samples were prepared, and their both mechanical and thermal properties were tested in accordance with ASTM and EN standards. Then, the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm was used for training the neural network in the single hidden layer using 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 neurons, respectively. For each thermal property, various activation functions such as tangent sigmoid functions and triangular basis functions were used to examine the best solution performance. Moreover, a cross-validation technique was used to ensure good generalization and to avoid overtraining. ANN results showed that the best overall R² performances for the prediction of thermal conductivity, specific heat, and thermal diffusivity were obtained as 0.996, 0.983, and 0.995 for tansig activation functions with 25, 25, and 20 neurons, respectively. The performance results showed that there was a great consistency between the predicted and tested results, demonstrating the feasibility and practicability of the proposed ANN models for predicting the thermal property of a concrete.

The volcanism of Kıra Mountain, at south of the Bitlis Zagros suture zone (BZK), was erupted from different joint systems by young extensional tectonic regime. The main geological and petrographic features of the Late Miocene Kıra Mountain volcanics were investigated as well as the major oxide, trace element and rare earth element geochemical characteristics. The Kıra Mountain volcanic products are classified as basanite, tephrite and trachy-basalt and show alkaline character above the alkaline-subalkaline separation line. Nonetheless, the peripherals associated with these volcanics starts with the Miocene aged Şelmo Formation. This formation is accompanied by Oligocene Germik Formation and Eocene Gercus Formations. The Karacadag volcanics are adjacent to the Lower, Middle and Late-Cambrian Sadan, Koruk and Sosink Formations, respectively, predominantly the Precambrian Derik Formation. In addition to these formations, Late Cretaceous Karababa and Karbogaz Formations, Late Cretaceous-Paleocene Germav Formation, Eocene Midyat Formation and Eocene Şelmo Formations are also contiguous. The phenocrysts of the Karacadag volcanics include olivine, clinopyroxene, plagioclase and opaque minerals. In the Kıra Mountain volcanics, olivine, plagioclase and opaque minerals are accompanied by sanidine and pyroxene. As reported by the geochemical and petrographical studies, The Karacadag volcanics are mainly classified as basalt and trachy-basalt, tephrite, basanite and hawaiite. Moreover these lavas are mainly alkaline and present subalkaline transition. The Karacadag volcanics erupted in three different stages with different phases, and the Kıra mountain volcanics were found to be identical with the Siverek stage.