Discussion on “Predicting the shear strength of reinforced concrete beams using artificial neural networks” by M.Y. Mansour, M. Dicleli, J.Y. Lee, J. Zhang [Eng Struct 26 (2004) 781–799]

The paper reporting the study by the authors considers the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the ultimate shear strengths of reinforced concrete (RC) beams with transverse reinforcements. Because of some paradoxes in the results, the proposed ANN model has almost no reliability. The aim of this discussion is to point out controversial points of the paper.