European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol.78 No.1 (2012), pp.85-92

© EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012
http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com

Prediction of Weld Bead Geometry using Artificial Neural

Networks on 2205 Duplex Stainless Steel

G. Bansal Rajkumar
Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering
KGiSL Institute of Tecnology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India
E-Mail: bansalgnanasundaram@gmail.com
Tel: +91 98945 99420

N. Murugan
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract

Artificial neural networks are computational models used to address complex non-
linear relationships between input and output variables. It is one of the powerful modeling
techniques, based on statistical approach, presently practiced in the field of engineering for
modeling complex relationships which are difficult to explain with physical models. Flux-
cored arc welding (FCAW) is an automatic or semiautomatic welding process where
tubular electrode with flux as consumable is required supply continuously. FCAW input
process parameters like welding current, welding speed and open circuit voltage are highly
influencing the quality of weld joints. This experiment has been conducted based on three-
factors and five levels of central composite rotatable design with full replication technique
using 2205 duplex stainless steel. Using the experimental data a multi-layer feed forward
artificial neural network with back propagation algorithm is modeled to predict the effects
of welding input process parameters on weld bead geometry.

Keywords: ANN, Back propagation, Welding, Input process parameters, Bead Geometry.

1. Introduction
Welding is one of the essential and inescapable processes in manufacturing industries. Various types of
welding process like Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW), Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW),
Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW), and Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) are being practiced in
industrial environment. Among these fusions welding process, FCAW is popular in the industries [1]
due to the following features
• Consistent and high quality weld metal deposit
• Metal deposition can be controlled accurately
• Low spatters and low cost for shielding gas
• Smooth welding characteristic and can be weld in all position.
• High deposition rate which increase productivity
Selection of appropriate welding technique is very important to obtain good quality of weld
bead [2]. For many welding applications like vertical-up welding, flat welding, welding over
Prediction of Weld Bead Geometry using Artificial
Neural Networks on 2205 Duplex Stainless Steel 86

galvanized, or welding hard-to-weld steels, a flux-cored wire perform it better and faster. FCAW is
suitable for low and mild alloy steels, some high nickel alloys and stainless steels [3].
Stainless steels are commonly used in industries due to its corrosion resistance. Stainless steel
can be classified as ferritic, austenitic, martensitic, precipitation-hardening and duplex stainless steels.
These steels are identified based on their micro structure and major crystal phase. Duplex stainless
steel is the mixture of austenitic and ferrite phase. The combination of microstructure is approximately
50% austenite and 50% ferrite. Hence, it posses inherent properties such as good pitting resistance,
high fatigue strength, good weld ability, high mechanical strength, low coefficient of thermal
expansion and immune to corrosion at ambient temperature. Higher chromium content in the 2205
alloy is an advantage for pitting corrosion resistance [4]. 2205 Duplex stainless steel are widely used
due to both corrosion resistance and high strength. They are applied in pulp and paper industry,
desalination plants, cargo tanks and pipe systems in chemical tankers, bridges, pressure vessels and
heat exchangers.
The weld joint quality is determined by various welding input process parameters such as
welding speed, arc current, voltage, open circuit voltage (OCV), nozzle to plate distance (NPD), gas
flow rate, preheat temperature [5]. Among those, selections of significant input process parameters are
very important to obtain good bead geometry, which represents the strength of weld and its quality [6].
Generally input parameters are chosen by the welders and engineers based on their experience and by
trial and error method. After conducting trial the welds, the welds are inspected whether it meets the
joint requirement or not. The above constrains have been overcome by design of experiment (DoE)
technique. It develops correlation between input process variables and output. Optimization of welding
process is essential to achieve desired bead quality [5].
Ureña [7] acknowledged the optimum welding condition for butt joints of 2205 duplex stainless
steel sheets using plasma-arc welding. Kannan and Murugan [8] have studied the effects of FCAW
process parameters on duplex stainless steel clad quality. Since the weld bead quality is depends more
on the input process parameters, it is essential to study the effects of input process parameters on weld
quality. Among the input process parameters welding speed, welding current and open circuit voltage
were considered as significant parameters in FCAW and the bead geometries such as width,
reinforcement, total area were taken as output values. The effective range of input parameters were
decided based on the external look of weld bead such as smooth continuous bead, absence of defects
like porosity, undercut etc. by visual inspection. The upper limit is coded as 1.682 and the lower limit
is coded as -1.682, the intermediate values can be calculated from the equation Xi = 1.682 [2X - (X max
+ X min)] / (X max - X min). Where Xi is expected to be the coded value of the variable of X; X is
considered as a variable between the values from X min to X max, [9]. Preferred levels of the process
parameters are presented in the Table 1.

Table 1: FCAW parameters and their levels

Factor Levels
Sl. No Parameters/units
-1.682 -1 0 1 1.682
1 Welding Current (A) 170 182 200 218 230
2 Welding Speed (cm/min) 25 27 31 35 37
3 Open Circuit Voltage (v) 28 30 32 34 36

In this present work, 2205 duplex stainless steel plates were joined with E2209T1 filler wire by
FCAW process. The welding trials were conducted based on three factors, five levels central composite
rotatable design. The chosen design matrix is shown in Table 2. It has a full replication of 23(=8)
factorial design, plus six centre and star points at a distance of 1.682 units from centre point. The first 8
rows match up to the factorial portion, 9 to 14 rows correspond to the axial portion, and last 6 rows
correspond to the central point portion. Hence, the experimental design consists of 20 experimental
87 G. Bansal Rajkumar and N. Murugan

runs. Numerous attempts have been recommended to develop mathematical models relating input
process parameters and weld bead geometry.
Recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods such as fuzzy logic, Artificial Neural Networks
(ANN) and expert system have been deployed as key techniques for monitoring and controlling
welding processes. Sukhomay Pal et al. [10] have addressed weld joint strength in pulsed metal inert
gas welding. Welding input process parameters such as pulse frequency, pulse voltage, pulse duration,
back-ground voltage, wire feed rate, welding speed, and the root mean square (RMS) measurements of
welding current and voltage, were used as input variables of the model and the ultimate tensile strength
of the welded plate was considered as the output value. A multilayer neural network was developed to
estimate the ultimate tensile strength in weld plates. They compared the output obtained from multiple
regression analysis with the developed artificial neural networks models and concluded that, ANN
model is better than the multiple regression analysis. An ANN model was developed by Abdullah Al-
faruk et al. [11] to predict weld bead geometry and penetration by considering electrode diameter,
current, voltage, travel speed, electrode feed rate, arc length and arc spread as influential factors for
electric arc welding successfully. ANN modeling has been chosen by its capability to solve complex
and difficult problems. A.Khorram, et al. [12] investigated the weld geometry of Ti 6Al 4V titanium
alloy using ANN approach. The experiments were designed using five levels response surface method.
Effects of process parameters including laser power, welding speed and focal point position on butt
weld geometries were carried out. To explore how process parameters affect on process state variables
(i.e. butt weld geometries), twenty experiments were conducted. Finally, the neural network technique
was used to model the laser welding process. Kim et al. [13] likened multiple regression analysis and
back propagation NN in modeling bead height in metal arc welding. They comprehended that the back
propagation neural network considerably more accurate than multiple regression. Nagesh and Datta
[14] reported that artificial networks are powerful tool for analysis and modeling. They applied back
propagation neural network to predict weld bead geometry and penetration in shielded metal arc
welding. In present scenario, ANN models have been used by many researchers to understand and
predict their targeted information [14, 15].
This paper presents the development of neural network model to predict weld bead geometry
for various input process parameters in 2205 duplex stainless steel butt welding deposited by FCAW.
The selected input parameters were welding current, welding speed and open circuit voltage. The
chosen output parameters were weld bead width, reinforcement and total area. The welding trials were
conducted based on three factors, five levels central composite rotatable design. Multilayer feed
forward neural network was developed and it was trained using back propagation algorithm. \

2. Experiment Work
Experiment setup consists of a power source of Indarc 400 MMR welding rectifier, filler wire feeding
unit with shielding gas flow control, welding gun and a manipulator which guides to deposit the filler
metal on the preferred area. The work table has two independent controllers for two axes, which help to
locate the welding region at right position. The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1

Figure 1: Experiment setup

Prediction of Weld Bead Geometry using Artificial
Neural Networks on 2205 Duplex Stainless Steel 88

2205 duplex stainless steel plates of size 150 X 50 X 6 mm3 were butt welded with a root gap of
2 mm using flux cored duplex stainless steel wire (E 2209T1-4/1) of 1.2 mm diameter. Shielding gas
containing 75 % Argon plus 25 % CO2 with a gas flow rate of 20 l/min was maintained. Plates were
welded on both sides keeping electrode-to-work angle as 900. Inter pass weld temperature was
maintained at 150º C and it was measured by infrared non contact digital thermometer. The welding
trials were conducted as per the design matrix at random to minimize the systematic errors creeping
into system. All the 20 weldments were cross sectioned at their mid-point and specimen of size 10 X
10 X 6 mm3 was obtained from each welded plate. A typical cross sectional view of a weld bead is
shown in Fig.2

Figure 2: A typical cross section of weld bead

The measured weld bead width (W) mm, reinforcement (R) mm and calculated total area (TA)
2
mm were recorded as per the design matrix shown in Table 2

Table 2: Design matrix with experimental and predicted values of weld bead geometry
89 G. Bansal Rajkumar and N. Murugan

3. Methodology of Artificial Neural Network Modeling

Most of the industrial processes are non-linear, complex and more input variables are involving in
processes. The mathematical models are not giving closer approach to describe the behavior of the
processes. ANNs are easy to understand, cost effective and have the capability to learn from examples
and have found in many industrial application. ANN model has been developed for general application
consist the following steps. Database collection, pre-processing of input/output data, design and
training of neural network, testing of trained network, post processing, use trained network for
prediction [16].
The arrangement of neurons into layer and the connection pattern within and between the layers
are called as network architecture. The architecture consist three parts [17]
1. Input layer receives the welding parameters
2. Hidden layer considered as block box
3. Output layer obtaining the values of bead geometry
The performance of the neural networks depends upon, the no of hidden layers and no of
neurons in the hidden layers. Hence, optimum structure is obtained by changing number of hidden
layer and neurons by made many attempts. The appropriate neural networks structure was chosen by
the trial and error method [13]. Feed forward artificial neural network structure was established by
keeping three neurons in the input layer, one hidden layer and three neurons in output layer using
MATLAB 7.0 Neural network Toolbox [18]. It was trained with help of back propagation (BP)
algorithm. BP is essentially stochastic approximation to nonlinear regression. Several researchers were
used BP to model welding processes and predict welding parameters using NN. The flow chart for the
back, propagation algorithm is shown in Fig.3.

Figure 3: Flow chart for the back propagation neural network

In training, it is essential to balance the importance of each parameter, the data must be
normalized. Since, neural networks works better in the range of 0 to 1 [19], the input and output vector
values are converted in the range of 0 to 1 using the following equation.
Xn = (X - Xmin) / (Xmax - Xmin) (1)
Where Xn = normalized value, X= actual input (or output) value, Xmax = Maximum value of the
inputs (or outputs), Xmin=Minimum value of the inputs (or outputs)
The designed neural networks structure was 3-5-3 (3 neurons in input layer, 5 neurons in
hidden layer and 3 neurons in output layer). A proposed feed forward neural network architecture
network is shown in Fig. 4. Non- linearity and input-output mapping are the useful complement in
neural networks. Hence, it has been adapted to model the input-output relation of non-linearity and
interconnected system [20].
Prediction of Weld Bead Geometry using Artificial
Neural Networks on 2205 Duplex Stainless Steel 90

Figure 4: Feedforward neural network architecture

The developed neural network architecture was trained with help of back propagation algorithm
using 16 data sets. The developed was tested out of testing dataset. The testing data are indicated in
boldfaced for “Trial No.” in Table 2; these testing data were not used for training the network. The %
error was calculated between the experimental and predicted value. The % error is ranging between
2.37. This characterized that, the developed neural network model have high accuracy for predicting
the weld bead geometry.

4. Results and Discussion

Figure 5: Experiment vs neural network values of bead width

Figure 6: Experiment vs neural network values of bead reinforcement

91 G. Bansal Rajkumar and N. Murugan
Figure 7: Experiments and neural network values of bead total area

Fig. 5, 6 and 7 depicted, the measured weld bead width, reinforcement and total area from the
experiment and predicted output values using artificial neural feed forward network. The measured and
predicted output values are close to each other. The aim of this paper shows the possibility of the use of
neural network to predict the weld bead geometry. The proposed neural network has the modeling
competence with average accordance ratio of 97.63 %.

5. Conclusion
The experimental analysis is confirmed that, artificial neural networks are power tools for analysis and
modeling. Results revealed that an artificial neural network is one of the alternate to predict the weld
bead geometry. Hence it can propose for real time work environment.

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