Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Prediction of transverse and angular distortions of gas tungsten arc

bead-on-plate welding using artificial neural network
Liang Tian ⇑, Yu Luo, Yang Wang, Xiao Wu
School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The angular distortion and transverse shrinkage are often generated in gas tungsten arc (GTA) bead-on-
Received 26 May 2013 plate welding process, which leads to additional costs of rework. Therefore, it is beneficial to estimate the
Accepted 22 August 2013 welding deformations prior to bead-on-plate welding in terms of several process parameters. This paper
Available online 4 September 2013
presents the development of a back propagation neural (BPN) network model for the prediction of angu-
lar distortion and transverse shrinkage generated in GTA bead-on-plate welding process. The model is
Keywords: based on the results from finite element (FE) simulations. The GTA bead-on-plate welding for S304L
Angular distortion
stainless steel was simulated using finite element method, and experiments were conducted to verify
Transverse shrinkage
Artificial neural network
the accuracy of the FE model. The experimental results were also used as testing samples for the BPN
Bead-on-plate welding model. Welding speed, current and voltage were considered as the input parameters and the angular dis-
Finite element method tortion and transverse shrinkage were the output parameters in the development of the BPN model. The
correlation coefficients and percentage errors for all the samples were calculated to evaluate the predic-
tion accuracy of BPN model. The results show that the BPN model developed in this study can predict the
angular distortion and transverse shrinkage with reasonable accuracy.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Welding is popularly employed as one of the major fabrication
processes in many manufacturing industries due to its inherent
advantages such as good reliability, cost-effective and high effi-
ciency [1]. In spite of its many advantages, there are still some lim-
itations affecting the welding process. Welding distortion is one of
the major problems caused by the local thermal cycle during weld-
ing process, including longitudinal and transverse shrinkages,
angular distortions, etc., which have negative impacts on the de-
sired properties of welded structures. In order to predict and min-
imize the welding-induced distortions practically, many
researchers have devoted much research efforts to this topic up
to now [2].
In the past decades, many numerical and experimental studies
have been conducted on the predictive methods and production
mechanism of welding-induced distortions. For example, Deng
et al. [3–6] investigated the welding distortions of different engi-
neering structures and welded joints by means of numerical simu-
lation technology and experimental method. Long et al. [7]
established a finite element model based on ABAQUS to predict
longitudinal, transverse and angular distortions induced in butt
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: 800 Dongchuan Road, Minhang District,
Shanghai 200240, PR China. Tel./fax: +86 21 34204923.
E-mail address: tl1985212@sjtu.edu.cn (L. Tian).
joint MIG welding of low carbon steel plates, the simulation results
of welding distortions are compared with experimental and empir-
ical predictions. Sulaiman et al. [8] investigated the welding distor-
tions on butt and T-joints with thickness of 4 mm using linear
thermal elastic numerical method, and a series of experiments
were carried out to verify the simulation results. Chern et al. [9]
carried out experiments to investigate the effects of the specific
fluxes used in TIG welding on angular distortions of bead-on-plate
joint when welding 6 mm duplex stainless steel. They found that
the activated TIG welding with SiO2 flux could reduce angular dis-
tortions significantly. Tseng and Chou [10] investigated the effect
of nitrogen added in argon shielding gas on angular distortions of
austenitic stainless steels 304 and 310, the GTA bead-on-plate
experiments were conducted and the results indicated that the
angular distortions increased with the increasing of nitrogen con-
tent. Sattari-Far and Javadi [11] studied the effect of welding se-
quence on welding distortions in TIG welded pipe–pipe joints
using the finite element method for 3D thermomechanical applica-
tions. The finite element results and experimental data showed
that a suitable welding sequence could decrease the welding dis-
tortions significantly. Bachorski et al. [12] developed a linear elas-
tic finite element model to predict post-weld distortions during
GMA welding. The finite element results were verified experimen-
tally. Mollicone et al. [13] studied the out-of-plane distortion of
butt welding thin rectangular plates using a number of finite ele-
ment models. The FE model results were compared with the

0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.08.082
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472
experimental data and simplified analytical solution. There are still
many scholars that have investigated the production mechanisms,
influence factors and controlling strategies for welding distortions
using different methods.
A literature survey shows that finite element method and
experimental measurement are the most widely used methods
for studying the phenomena of welding distortions [3–13]. How-
ever, the prediction of welding distortions using numerical meth-
ods is time consuming and requires a considerable computing
power due to the inherent strong nonlinearity of welding, which
makes it impractical for practical engineering applications. Exper-
imental study takes up a considerable amount of manpower and
material resources. In spite of this, the prediction of distortions
prior to welding under certain conditions is necessary and impor-
tant, to allow the design procedures to be developed to compen-
sate for welding distortions. Therefore, developing a reliable
model that can predict the welding distortions effectively and eas-
ily under certain conditions is of great necessity. The development
of artificial neural network provides an alternative for realizing this
idea that is the base of this research. In this study, transverse
shrinkage and angular distortions in GTA bead-on-plate welded
304L stainless steel plates were predicted using artificial neural
network. During the past decades, artificial neural networks have
been widely used in different aspects of welding [14]. Nagesh
et al. [15] used BP neural networks to associate the welding pro-
cess parameters with the features of the weld bead geometry
and penetration. Kanti and Rao [16] developed a BP neural network
model to predict the weld bead geometry in PGMA welding pro-
cess. Chokkalingham et al. [17] estimated the weld bead width
and depth of penetration from the infrared thermal imaging of
the weld pool using ANN models during TIG welding of 3 mm
316 LN stainless steel plates. Acherjee and Mondal [18] established
a correlation between the laser transmission welding parameters
(laser power, welding speed, stand-off distance and clamping pres-
sure) and output variables (lap-shear strength and weld seam
width) by using artificial neural network. Okuyucu and Kurt [19]
used back propagation algorithm to predict the mechanical proper-
ties of welded Al plates as a function of different friction stir weld-
ing parameters, including weld speed and tool rotation speed.
Sukhomay et al. [20] developed a multilayer neural network model
to predict the ultimate tensile stress of welded plates using arc sig-
nals as input variables. Hamidinejad and Kolahan [21] proposed a
back propagation neural network model to estimate tensile-shear
strength of resistance spot welding joint as a function of four
important process parameters in resistance spot welding on galva-
nized steel sheets used in car body manufacturing. Ahmadzadeh
and Fard [22] developed a back propagation neural network model
to predict the maximum residual stress produced in gas metal arc
welding process. Kumanan and Kumar [23] proposed the predic-
tive neural network as a function-replacing hybrid system to pre-
dict the welding residual stress, the input data of the neural
network came from a series of finite element simulations for differ-
ent welding parameters. Lim and Bae [24] investigated the residual
stress of dissimilar metal welding under a variety of welding con-
ditions using three data-based models, including support vector
regression (SVR), fuzzy neural network (FNN) and combined mod-
els (FNN + SVR). Vilar and Zapata [25] described an artificial neural
network (ANN) model for weld defect classification. Yahia and Bel-
hadj [26] proposed an original method to detect the welding de-
fects in the weld radiography using artificial neural networks,
aiming at the classification and recognition for weld defects. Mar-
tín and De Tiedra [27] used artificial neural network to predict the
influence of welding parameters on pitting corrosion behavior of
resistance spot welding joints of AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel.
Carvalho and Rebello [28] established an ANN model to recognize
the magnetic flux leakage signals in weld joints of pipelines. The
459
model was applied to classify signal patterns with three types of
defects in the weld bead. According to the above literature surveys,
it can be seen that most studies about the ANN model used in
welding were focused on the prediction of weld seam geometries
[15–17], mechanical properties of weld joints [18–21], the residual
stress distributions [22–24], recognition of weld defects [25–28],
etc. However, in the field of welding distortions studied by using
artificial neural networks, there are a limited amount of papers
published. For example, Yasuhisa [29] predicted the welding dis-
tortions in T-joint fillet welds using artificial neural networks.
The input data of ANN model came from FEM simulation results.
Lightfoot and Bruce [30–32] and Bruce et al. [33,34] published sev-
eral papers on the prediction of welding induced distortions in ship
plates using artificial neural networks under different consider-
ations. Choobi and Haghpanahi [35] established a BP neural net-
work to predict the angular distortions in butt-welded 304
stainless steel plates, the training data were obtained from the fi-
nite element simulations for a wide range of plate dimensions.
Though several researchers studied the welding distortions based
on artificial neural network method from different aspects [29–
35], the literature on the perdition of welding distortions using
artificial neural networks is scarce in GTA bead-on-plate welding
of 304L stainless steel plate to author’s knowledge.
This paper presents the results of an investigation concerning
the effects of welding parameters including voltage, current and
speed on the transverse and angular distortions for GTA bead-
on-plate welding of 304L stainless steel. A 3D thermo-elasto-
plastic finite element model was developed to simulate the GTA
bead-on-plate welding process. A series of welding experiments
were performed to validate the finite element results. The ANN
model was developed to predict the transverse and angular distor-
tions from the simulation data obtained. The comparison between
predicted results from the ANN model and measured results from
the experiments shows that a good agreement has been obtained.
The study reveals that the neural network created in this paper can
accurately predict transverse and angular distortions produced in
GTA bead-on-plate welded plates within a certain range of welding
parameters.
2. The GTA bead-on-plate welding experiment
2.1. Material
The material used in this investigation is S304L stainless steel
plate with a length of 350 mm, a width of 270 mm, and a thickness
of 15 mm, as shown in Fig. 1. S304L stainless steel is used in a wide
range of industrial applications due to its desirable properties such
as high resistance to corrosion, resistance to creep at high temper-
atures and good weldability [36,37]. Table 1 gives the chemical
composition and mechanical properties of S304L [38]. The plates
were cleaned with fresh stainless steel wire brush, followed by
acetone swabbing before bead-on-plate welding.
h
id t
W
Length
Fig. 1. Geometry of welded plates.
460 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

Table 1 Table 3
Chemical compositions and mechanical properties of S304L stainless steel. Welding conditions.
Chemical composition (mass%) Mechanical properties No. Voltage Current Speed (mm/ Nominal heat input (J/
C Cr Mn Ni Yield Tensile Elongation (V) (A) min) mm)
strength strength A (%) 1 8.0 80 110 279.27
Re/MPa Rm/MPa 2 10.0 100 90 533.33
60.030 18  20 62.0 8  12 P240 P550 40 3 11.0 150 90 880.00
4 13.9 175 120 973.00
5 15.2 226 120 1374.08
6 13.3 200 90 1418.67
2.2. Bead-on-plate experiments 7 16.5 275 120 1815.00
8 17.7 275 100 2336.40
9 16.5 275 80 2722.50
Gas tungsten arc welding (also know as TIGW) is used in the
bead-on-plate experiments, shown as Fig. 2. Pure argon is supplied
as the shielding gas at a flow rate of 10 L/min in trailing arrange-
ment with the nozzle angle at 45° and standoff distance being
5 cm in the GTA process. The filler metal is ER308L with the chem-
ical compositions shown in Table 2 [39]. A thoriated tungsten elec-
trode with a diameter of 2.4 mm is moved at a constant speed
using a mechanical system.
The experimental layout for the bead-on-plate welding condi- S/2
Welding
tions is shown in Table 3. The experiments were conducted over direction
a range of voltage (8.0 and 17.7 V), current (80 and 275 A), and
welding speed (80 and 120 mm/min). The corresponding nominal
heat inputs are arranged in the increasing order. Bead-on-plate
welding trails were performed to verify the finite element model
as developed in the following section.

2.3. Measurement of welding distortions

In order to investigate the influence of different welding param-

eters on welding distortions and to provide an experimental veri-
fication for the finite element model thus developed, a series of
experiments were performed to measure the transverse shrinkage
and angular distortion in the GTA bead-on-plate welding under dif-
ferent welding conditions. The welding distortions considered in Fig. 3. Welding deformation measurement diagram (h: Angular distortion, s:
this research are schematically shown in Fig. 3. The letters S and Transverse shrinkage).

H represent transverse shrinkage and angular distortion,

respectively.
The plate layout for transverse shrinkage measurement is
shown in Fig. 4. Transverse shrinkage was measured at a, b, c, d
and e locations using vernier caliper and the average value was cal-
culated. The transverse shrinkage can be defined as:
1
S¼ ðDLa þ DLb þ DLc þ DLd þ DLe Þ ð1Þ
5
where DLa ¼ La1  La2 represents the transverse shrinkage and La1
and La2 are the horizontal lengths of the plate before and after weld-
ing, respectively, at measured point a.
The angular distortion can be calculated by using the coordinate
values in vertical direction before and after welding. Three measur-
ing points are located in the front, middle and end of the weld bead
respectively, as shown in Fig. 5. The vertical coordinates of these
points were measured with dial indicator. The angular distortion
can be defined as the mean vertical displacement measured at
three such points:
1
Fig. 2. GTA bead-on-plate welding process.
H¼ ðDPs þ DP m þ DPe Þ ð2Þ
3

Table 2
Filler metal composition (unit: wt.%).

Filler metal Cr Ni C Mo Mn Si P S Cu Fe
ER308L 19.95 10.39 0.016 0.08 1.87 0.48 0.022 0.004 0.11 Bal.
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472 461

3.5
Thermal Expansion Coefficient
3.0

Thermal-mechanical Properties
Youngs Modulus
a b c d e Poisson ratio
2.5 Re/(102MP) Yield Stress

2.0 /(10-5 -1
)

1.5

a b c d e 1.0 E/(102GPa)
0.5

0.0

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

Fig. 4. Locations of transverse shrinkage measuring points (mm). Temperature

Fig. 7. Temperature-dependent mechanical properties of S304L.

Ps Pm Pe

Rs Rm Re

Fig. 8. Three-dimensional finite element model.

procedure consists of two steps: in the first step, a nonlinear tran-

Ps Pm Pe sient thermal analysis is performed and the temperature distribu-
tion and its history are calculated. The heat conduction problem is
Fig. 5. Locations of angular distortion measuring points (mm). solved using the Gaussian heat input from the arc. In the second
step, the temperature history is used as a thermal load in the sub-
where DPs ¼ P s1  Ps2 is the angular distortion; Ps1 and Ps2 are the sequent mechanical analysis.
vertical displacements before and after welding, respectively, at In thermal and mechanical analysis, the material is modeled as
measured point Ps . thermo-elastic–plastic with isotropic hardening. The base metal
was utilized for its temperature-dependent thermo-physical and
mechanical properties. The temperature-dependent thermo-phys-
3. Finite element modeling
ical properties and mechanical properties of the S304L steels are
shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively [40]. Since the temperature
3.1. Establishment of the finite element model
distribution was symmetric about the weld line, only a half of
the welded plate was modeled and analyzed to save the computa-
The welding distortions behavior of the GTA bead-on-plate
tional time. The meshes of the model are shown in Fig. 8, which
welding process was computed using an uncoupled thermo-
were six layers of elements in the thickness direction. The dimen-
mechanical FE program based on ABAQUS code. The simulation
sions of the FE model are the same as the experimental model. In
the weld zone and its vicinity, a fine mesh is adopted. The mini-
9 mum element is 2.5 mm  2.5 mm  5 mm. The number of nodes
8
/(103kg·m-3) is 8250, and that of elements is 8000. The element types are
DC3D8 and C3D8I, which are used for thermal and mechanical
Thermal-physical properties

7 analysis, respectively.

6
C/(102J·kg-1· -1
)
Thermal Conductivity
5 Specific heat
Density P2
4

3 /(10W·m-1· -1
)

2 Z
Y
1
P1
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 X Symmetry plane
Temperature

Fig. 6. Temperature-dependent thermal physical properties of S304L. Fig. 9. Mechanical boundary conditions.
462 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

1.8

Displacement U3 (mm)
Pe e
d
Pm c Pm
1.2 Ps
b
a Pe
Ps

0.6
Fig. 10. The measured points of FE model: Ps-the start point, Pm-the middle point,
Pe-the end point.

0.0
3.2. Thermal analysis and mechanical analysis in welding simulation 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Time (s)
3.2.1. Thermal analysis
Fig. 12. Displacement U3 of the selected points: Ps-the start point, Pm-the middle
A nonlinear heat transfer analysis was performed to obtain the
point, Pe-the end point.
time dependent temperature distribution field induced by the GTA
bead-on-plate welding process. In the thermal analysis, the weld
heating process is modeled by applying a heat source with a Gauss-
ian distribution. Thus, weld nodes laid on the surface of the plate
within the arc beam radius ra receive corresponding heat fluxes
qðtÞ according to the following equation:
"  2 #
3Q A rðtÞ
qðtÞ ¼ exp  ð3Þ
pr2a ra

where rðtÞ is the radial distance measured from the instantaneous

arc center on the surface of the plate and Q A is the heat input from
the welding arc.
Q A ¼ gIU
where g represents the arc efficiency factor, which accounts for
radiation and other losses from the arc to the ambient environ-
ment. Here, the value is assumed to be 0.75 for GTA welding pro-
cess. I is electric current, and U is voltage. The heat flux with
Gaussian distribution for the moving welding arc is modeled by a
user subroutine DFLUX in ABAQUS developed by FROTRAN subrou-
tine. The parameters of Gaussian model have been adjusted based
on the experimental results and the highest temperature of the
weld pool (approximately 1750 °C) [41], then the suitable Gaussian
model can be derived and used in the bead-on-plate welding
simulation.
Heat losses from the welded surfaces of the plate due to radia-
tion and convection are considered. Radiation losses are dominant
near and in the weld zone for higher temperatures, while
Pe
Pm
Ps
Fig. 11. Angular distortion distribution of the model: Ps-the start point, Pm-the
middle point, Pe-the end point.
e
c
ð4Þ
a
Fig. 13. Transverse shrinkage distribution of the model.
convection losses for lower temperatures are the dominant loss
away from the weld zone. The total temperature-dependent film
coefficient is given by Eq. (5) [42]:
(
0:68  108 ðW=mm2 Þ 0 < T < 500 C
H¼ ð5Þ
ð0:231T  82:1Þ  106 ðW=mm2 ÞT > 500 C
where T is the temperature.
The combined thermal boundary condition is simulated by a
user subroutine program developed with FROTRAN. It is then em-
ployed for all free surfaces of the welded plate. In order to account
for heat transfer due to fluid flow in the weld pool, the thermal
conductivity is increased artificially for temperatures above the
melting point. The latent heat of fusion was incorporated into
the material model to simulate the heat released during solidifica-
tion of the weld pool by increasing the specific heat at the melting
temperature. The temperature-dependent thermal physical prop-
erties of material are plotted in Fig. 6.
3.2.2. Mechanical analysis
In the mechanical analysis, the same finite element models used
in the thermal analysis are employed. The only difference is the
element type and boundary conditions. The element type is
C3D8I and the boundary conditions are used to prevent rigid body
motion, as shown in Fig. 9. The symmetric plane is fixed in Y-direc-
tion due to the symmetry of the FE model. The point P1 in Fig. 8 is
constrained in the X and Z direction, and point P2 is constrained
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472 463

0.05
8

The sum of squares due to error

Point A 7
0.00
Point C
Displacement U2 (mm)

Point E 6
-0.05
5

-0.10 4

3
-0.15
2

-0.20 1

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Time (s) Number of neurons in hidden layer

Fig. 14. Displacement U2 of the selected points. Fig. 17. Effect of number of neurons in hidden layer on the sum of square error.

Hidden layer
1.8 15
Input layer Output layer
1.6 FEM 3 W1 fs W2 2
EXP
Angular Distortion (mm)

1.4 Speed(X1)
fs Output 1(S1)
1.2 fl
Current(X2)
1.0 fs
Output 2(S2)
fl
0.8 Voltage(X3)
fs
0.6

0.4 fs

0.2 Fig. 18. Structure of the designed BP neural network.

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Welding Heat Input (J/mm)

Fig. 15. Angular distortion in different heat inputs. Table 4

Setting of the processing parameters.

Parameters Notation Unit Levels of factors

1.4 1 2 3 4 5

FEM Voltage U V 8 14 20 26 32
1.2 EXP Current C A 80 140 200 260 320
Transverse Shrinkage (mm)

Speed S mm/min 70 120 170 220 270

1.0

0.8

0.6
welding deformation, so it can be ignored in the computational
model [43]. Therefore, the total strain rate can be decomposed into
0.4 three components as follows:

0.2 etotal ¼ ee þ ep þ eth ð6Þ

0.0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Welding Heat Input (J/mm)
Fig. 16. Transverse shrinkage in different heat inputs.
only in the Z-direction. P1 and P2 are the start and end points of the
weld centerline of the FE model, respectively. The mechanical anal-
ysis is performed by using the temperature results calculated in
the above thermal analysis as the input data.
The strain induced by welding process can be divided into elas-
tic, plastic, thermal and transformation strain. However, the phase
transformation for the mild steel has an insignificant effect on the
In Eq. (6), ee , ep and eth are the elastic, plastic and thermal strain,
3000
respectively.
The elastic strain is modeled using the isotropic Hook’s law with
temperature-dependent Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio. The
temperature-dependent coefficient of thermal expansion is used
to calculate the thermal strain. For the plastic strain component,
a rate-independent plastic model is used with the characteristics
including Von Mises yield surface, temperature-dependent
mechanical properties and linear kinematic hardening model. Lin-
ear kinematic hardening is incorporated into the simulation model
because material points typically undergo both loading and
unloading in the welding process [44]. This simulation model has
been widely used in the welding deformation simulation. The
464 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

Table 5
The training samples used for the network.

Sl. No. Factors Simulation results

Voltage (V) Current (A) Speed (mm/min) Ang-distortion (E-01 mm) Tran-shrinkage (E-02 mm)
1 8 80 70 8.78 19.24
2 8 140 120 9.45 22.31
3 8 200 170 13.93 33.50
4 14 140 170 15.95 38.89
5 14 200 220 17.32 41.63
6 14 320 70 0.39 152.39
7 20 200 270 19.48 46.49
8 20 260 70 0.24 175.61
9 20 320 120 5.93 115.37
10 26 80 220 13.27 27.60
11 26 140 270 18.11 42.38
12 26 260 120 4.88 121.04
13 32 80 270 12.69 29.00
14 32 260 170 1.29 147.33
15 32 320 220 8.87 121.85
16 16.8 151 247 12.60 28.66
17 23.0 156 253 17.91 41.77
18 26.7 182 229 21.03 68.96
19 9.9 202 89.7 15.62 52.54
20 30.3 101 122 17.27 61.76
21 26.6 143 137 15.63 74.97
22 19.7 272 206 20.54 75.05
23 18.5 87.0 97.3 15.11 40.20
24 18.7 303 214 20.03 78.48
25 15.4 255 91.5 8.65 94.04
26 20.2 197 201 20.44 57.95
27 20.6 219 169 12.91 86.46
28 27.6 137 226 20.15 55.13
29 27.0 190 213 20.84 72.91
30 23.5 311 251 24.10 78.96
31 17.6 211 248 18.47 43.22
32 27.5 205 137 8.53 103.82
33 20.8 136 210 17.44 42.06
34 16.4 197 110 4.24 110.00
35 30.5 230 76.5 0.27 191.42
36 29.0 243 219 16.43 92.48
37 21.2 175 170 16.07 73.35
38 10.5 96 85 13.05 36.67
39 25.5 310 256 23.56 83.79
40 13.0 89.0 192 14.74 97.31

225
25
(a) (b)
Transverse Shrinkage (1E-02mm)

200
Angular Distortion (1E-01mm)

175
20
150
15 125
100
10
75
5 50
25
0
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Samples Samples

Fig. 19. (a) Ang-distortion and (b) Tran-shrinkage distribution of the samples.

temperature-dependent mechanical properties of S304L austenitic
stainless steel are shown in Fig. 7.
3.3. Measurement of simulation results and experimental verification
In this study, transverse shrinkage and angular distortion are
investigated by experiment and FE simulation. The measuring
method for the numerical distortions is worth illustrating in order
to achieve a better comparison with the experimental results. The
locations of the measuring points in the FE model are identical to
those of the GTA bead-on-plate welding experiments performed
in Section 2.3, as shown in Fig. 10. The measuring method for the
simulative values is also the same as the experimental one.
Fig. 11 shows the contours of the angular distortion distribution.
U3 is the displacement of Z-direction, and is chosen to measure
the value of angular distortion. U3 is consistent with H shown in
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472
Performance is 0.0000972, Goal is 0.0001
1
10
0
10
Mean Squared Error (mse)
-1
10
-2
10
-3
10
-4
10
10
-5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
37018 Epochs
Fig. 20. Training process of the 3-15-2 BP neural network.
Section 2.3. From this figure, it can be observed that a significant
angular distortion is produced after bead-on-plate welding. The
angular distortion is becoming larger as it is farther away from
the welding centerline. The same variation tendency also appears
from the front to the rear of the weld seam. Ps, Pm and Pe are located
at edge of the plate, corresponding to the front, middle and end of
the weld seam, respectively. Fig. 12 illustrates the displacement U3
of the selected points. From Fig. 12, it is observed that the displace-
ments U3 of all these selected points rise rapidly in the heating
time, and then reach the corresponding stable values in the follow-
ing cooling time. The value of angular distortion at point Ps is the
smallest among the three points, while Pm lies in the middle. At
point Pe, the maximum angular distortion is about 2.0 mm.
Fig. 13 shows the contours of transverse shrinkage distribution. It
can be seen that the transverse shrinkage along the thickness
direction is almost uniform. Point A, C and E are located near the
weld zone, which is exactly the same measuring location as in
the experiment. Fig. 14 shows the displacements U2 of the selected
points. Comparing the transverse shrinkage of point A (the front of
the weld zone) with that of point E (the end of the weld zone), it
can be observed that the former is very close to the latter. How-
ever, the maximum transverse shrinkage appears in the middle
of the weld zone. At point C, the maximum shrinkage is almost
0.22 mm.
In order to verify the finite element model developed above, a
series of experiments were performed. The angular distortion
and transverse shrinkage measured from the FE model were com-
pared with the experimental results. The welding conditions are
the same as used in the finite element simulations. Fig. 15 shows
the angular distortions for various heat inputs. From the figure it
is observed that the simulation results are in good agreement with
the experimental results both in distribution shape and in magni-
tude. The curve reveals that the magnitude of the angular distor-
tion first increases with the increasing of heat input, but
decreases with further increasing of the heat input, after reaching
a maximum value at a heat input of 1000 J/mm. Fig. 16 shows the
transverse shrinkage under different heat inputs. It is observed that
the transverse shrinkage is increasing with the increasing of heat
input. The simulated results are much close to the experimental
values. It can be also seen that the welding deformations obtained
from the FE model are somewhat larger than the experimental re-
sults, this difference being due partially to the inherent character-
istics of the numerical model. The changing trends of angular
distortion and transverse shrinkage with the heat input are also
in agreement with the bead-on-plate welding research results by
465
Bae [45]. Therefore, it can be concluded that the finite element
model developed in this study is suitable for predicting the angular
Train
Goal distortion and transverse shrinkage in the bead-on-plate welding.
4. Artificial neural network based calculation model
4.1. Establishment of the artificial neural network
The finite element simulation and experimental study show
that the relationship between welding parameters (i.e. welding
speed, current and voltage) and welding deformations (i.e. angular
distortion, transverse shrinkage) is nonlinear. So it is very difficult
to present an explicit mathematical function to describe this non-
linear relationship. However, artificial neural network (ANN)
P
netj ¼ Ni¼1 wji xi þ hj model provides a powerful tool for solving this
3 3.5 question due to its high nonlinear mapping capability. The advan-
x 10 4 tage of this approach is that the prediction model can be estab-
lished using experimental data without having to make any
simplifying assumptions. Hence, a multi-layer back propagation
network model is established to map the complex and highly inter-
active process parameters, namely, welding speed, current and
voltage, to predict the angular distortion and transverse shrinkage
in GTA bead-on-plate welding process.
BP network is a multilayer feed-forward network based on error
back-propagation supervised learning algorithm, which is widely
used in engineering applications for prediction and optimization
due to its powerful ability of nonlinear interpolation [46,47]. As a
kind of information processing system, the BP network consists
of input layer, one or more hidden layers and output layer. Every
layer has a number of neurons, which are connected by the con-
nection weight just like the synapses of the nervous system [48].
Moreover, each neuron has a bias that makes it work or not
depending on the level of input signal. The neuron’s output in
the previous layer is used as the input of the neuron in the follow-
ing layer. The input of the j-th neuron is described by the following
formula [49–51]:
X
N
netj ¼ wji xi þ hj ð7Þ
i¼1
where netj is the total input of the j-th neuron in the computing
layer; N denotes the number of neurons in the layer previous to
that of the j-neuron, wji is the connection weight between i-neuron
in the forward layer and j-neuron in the computing layer, hj is the
bias, xi is the input signal from i-neuron.
In this paper, a BP-ANN model was established and trained
using the Neural Network Toolbox in the MATLAB R2008a package
[52]. While BP network can have many hidden layers, all pattern
recognition and classification tasks can be accomplished by a
three-layer BP network [46]. So the BP neural network with only
one hidden layer is chosen in this study. The selection of the appro-
priate number of neurons in the hidden layer plays an important
role in determining the performance of neural networks, as either
too few or too many neurons in the hidden layers adversely affects
the prediction ability. The appropriate number of neurons in hid-
den layer was obtained by try-and-error method in order to get
the minimum mean square error (MSE) between the actual outputs
and predicted values:
!
1X
p
2
MSE ¼ ðactual  predictedÞ ð8Þ
p 1
where p represents the number of training samples.
Fig. 17 shows the sum of square error varying with the number
of neurons in the hidden layer. From this figure it should be noted
that fifteen neurons in the hidden layer give a better network
466 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 21. The interactive effect of the welding parameters on the angular distortion, (a) current and voltage, (b) speed and voltage, (c) speed and current.

performance. This suggested that fifteen neurons in the hidden
layer make the BP-ANN model effective. Thus, a 3-15-2 BP neural
network was designed on the Matlab platform. The schematic of
the designed neural network is shown in Fig. 18.
Fig. 18 illustrates the structure of the BP neural network de-
signed in this study. The network consists of one input layer with
3 neurons standing for the welding speed, current and voltage,
respectively; one hidden layer with 15 neurons and one output
layer having 2 neurons representing angular distortion and trans-
verse shrinkage, respectively. The BP neural network must be
trained before it is put to operation. During the training process,
the connection weights are adjusted to minimize the deviation of
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472 467

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 22. The interactive effect of the welding parameters on the transverse shrinkage, (a) current and voltage, (b) speed and voltage, (c) speed and current.

the predictive data from the experimental data. The objective func- input layer and hidden layer, hidden layer and output layer,
tion contained in the trained network can be expressed approxi- respectively.
mately as follows [53]: It is necessary to make the training data dimensionless in order
to achieve a better performance. Hence, function (10) is used to
X X 
S¼f
l
W2 f
s
W1 X ð9Þ preprocess the data by normalizing these data into a range of
[1, 1]. The algorithm can be expressed as follows [54]:
where S = [s1,s2] stands for the matrix consisting of welding
deformations; X = [x1,x2,x3] is the matrix consisting of welding 2ðX  minðXÞÞ
parameters, including welding speed, current and voltage; fl is Xn ¼ 1 ð10Þ
maxðXÞ  minðXÞ
the linear transfer function between hidden layer and output
layer; fs is the transfer function between input layer and hidden where X denotes the matrix of input (column) vectors; X n rep-
layer; W1 and W2 represent the connection weights between resents the matrix of normalized input vectors.
468 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

Best Linear Fit: Y=(1.0)T+(0.00062) Best Linear Fit: Y=(1)T+(-0.026)

2.5 1.8

(Y) Predicted angular distortion by ANN (mm)

(Y) Predicted angular distortion by ANN (mm)

R=0.99978
R=0.99404
1.6
2
1.4

1.5 1.2

1
1
0.8

0.5 0.6 Testing samples

Training samples Best Linear Fit
Best Linear Fit
0.4
Y=T
Y=T
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
(T) Measured angular distortion by finite element (mm) (T) Measured angular distortion by experiment (mm)

Fig. 23. Line of best fit for predicted angular distortion by BPN model versus finite Fig. 25. Line of best fit for predicted angular distortion by BPN model versus
element for training samples. experimental results for testing samples.

Best Linear Fit:Y=(1)T+(0.00023) Best Linear Fit: Y=(0.95)T+(0.058)

2 1.3
(Y) Predicted transverse shrinkage by ANN (mm)
(Y) Predicted transverse shrinkage by ANN(mm)

1.8 R=0.99986 1.2 R=0.995

1.6
1.1
1.4
1
1.2
0.9
1
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.6

0.4 0.6
Training samples Testing samples
Best Linear Fit 0.5 Best Linear Fit
0.2
Y=T
Y=T
0 0.4
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3
(T) Measured transverse shrinkage by finite element (mm) (T) Measured transverse shrinkage by experiment (mm)

Fig. 24. Line of best fit for predicted transverse shrinkage by BPN model versus Fig. 26. Line of best fit for predicted transverse shrinkage by BPN model versus
finite element for training samples. experimental results for testing samples.

4.2. Mathematical experiment

The purpose of the network training is to adjust the connection
The mathematical experiment was conducted based on BP neu- weight between the layers to minimize the mean square error be-
ral network and FE simulations. The designed BP neural network tween the predictive data and experimental data. During the net-
should be trained by a number of samples in order to make it work training process, the tansig transfer function and purelin
acquire the knowledge inherent in the experimental data. To save transfer function are used between input layer and hidden layer,
the computing resources and improve the coverage of the samples, hidden layer and output layer, respectively. The training rule for
the orthogonal experiment is designed to conduct the FE simula- this BP network is traingda algorithm, which is a network training
tions under ABAQUS platform. Fifteen input samples are designed function that updates weight and bias values according to gradient
by the orthogonal experiment method; the designed orthogonal ta- descent with adaptive learning rate [52]. The appropriate network
ble with 3 factors and 5 levels is shown in Table 4. Other 25 input parameter must be assigned in order to get a better training effect.
samples are generated by computer randomly; a total of 40 train- With a learning rate of 0.01, lr_Inc. of 1.05, lr_dec of 0.7 and a per-
ing samples used for the BP neural network shown in Table 5 are formance goal set to 0.0001, the network was trained for 37018
used to train the designed network. The distribution of the samples epochs and an error of 9.72e-05 was reached as the updating of
can be seen in Fig. 19. the connection weights. Fig. 20 shows the training process of the
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472 469

2.5 1.3
Predictive value by ANN Predictive value by ANN
1.2
Calculated value by FEM Measured value by EXP

Transverse shrinkage (mm)

2 1.1
Angular distortion (mm)

1
1.5 0.9
0.8
1 0.7
0.6
0.5 0.5
0.4
0 0.3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Testing samlpes
Training samlpes
Fig. 30. Comparison of predicted and experimental results for transverse shrinkage
Fig. 27. comparison of predicted and finite element results for angular distortion while testing using BPN model.
while training using BPN model.

10
2
8 Training samples
1.8 Testing samples

% Error of angular distortion

Predictive value by ANN
Calculated value by FEM 6
Transverse shrinkage (mm)

1.6
4
1.4
2
1.2
0
1
-2
0.8
-4
0.6
-6
0.4 -8
0.2 -10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Number of predicted points
Training samples
Fig. 31. Comparison of% error of predicted results using the BPN model for angular
Fig. 28. Comparison of predicted and finite element results for transverse shrinkage distortion.
while training using BPN model.
5. Result and discussion

1.8 5.1. Angular distortion

Predictive value by ANN
1.6 Measured value by EXP It is evident that the welding process parameters have an
Angular distortion (mm)

1.4 important effect on the welding deformations. So it is necessary

to discuss the interactive relationship. Fig. 21(a) shows the interac-
1.2 tive effect of current and voltage on the angular distribution when
1 the welding speed is kept constant. The interactive relationship can
be complex as seen from the shape of the curve surface. It is ob-
0.8 served from this figure that the angular distortion has a local peak
when welding current ranges from 190 A to 210 A and voltage
0.6
ranges from 18 V to 30 V. When the current is not very high, angu-
0.4 lar distortion increases with the increase in voltage until it reaches
the maximum value, then angular distortion starts to decrease as
0.2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 voltage increases. When the current is in the high-value range,
Testing samlpes the angular distortion reaches its maximum value although the
voltage is still in the low-value range, then it begins to decrease
Fig. 29. Comparison of predicted and experimental results for angular distortion with the increase of voltage. However, when the current is in the
while testing using BPN model. low-value range, the angular distortion increases with the increas-
ing of voltage continuously. The descent stage does not appear
obviously because the heat input does not reach its threshold va-
lue, but we can conclude that the ridge area 3 may appear if the
designed BP neural model. From this figure, it can be seen that the
voltage grows larger. When the current and voltage are very high,
mean square error (MSE) declines gradually and converges to the
the angular distortion shows an evident smaller value because the
appointed goal within 37018 epochs.
angular distortion is caused by temperature gradient along the
470 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472

10 2.0

8 1.8
(a) FEM
% Error of transverse shrinkage

Training samples
Testing samples
6 EXP

Angular Distortion (mm)

1.6
ANN
4 1.4
2
1.2
0
1.0
-2
0.8
-4
0.6
-6
0.4
-8
-10 0.2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Number of predicted points Welding Heat Input (J/mm)

Fig. 32. Comparison of % error of predicted results using the BPN model for 1.4
transverse shrinkage.
(b)
1.2

Transverse Shrinkage (mm)

thickness direction. For the large heat input, the plate will be
heated uniformly through the thickness direction and small tem-
perature gradient will be produced. In this case, almost the same
in-plane shrinkage will generate along the thickness direction
and a small angular distortion is produced. The changing tendency
of angular distortion affected by current and voltage is similar to
the experimental curve plotted in Section 3.3.
Fig. 21(b) is a contour graph showing the interactive effect of
welding speed and voltage on angular distortion at a current of
200 A. It is observed from this figure that when the welding speed
is in the range of [50,100] mm/min, the angular distortion de-
creases with the increasing in welding voltage. The reason is that
when the welding speed is relatively small, the nominal heat input
may exceed the threshold value when increasing the voltage, then
the descent area appears. When the speed is in the middle area, the
ridge area appears. The angular distortion reaches its summit and
then decreases with the increasing of voltage at this area.
The changing tendency of the angular distortion when speed is in
the high-value zone is contrary to that when speed locates in the
low-value zone. That is because the nominal heat input is relatively
small when the speed is high, thus the heat input threshold is not
met.
Fig. 21(c) shows the interactive effect of speed and current on
the angular distortion. From this figure it is observed that increas-
ing the current at higher welding speed increases the angular dis-
tortion. When the welding speed is high, angular distortion
increases with the increase of current until it reaches about
2.0 mm, then the angular distortion will decrease if current further
grows. However, there is an opposite phenomenon when the weld-
ing speed is low, that is, the angular distortion decreases with the
increasing of current. That is because the nominal heat input does
not reach the threshold value when the speed is located in the
high-value zone, while it exceeds the threshold value when the
welding speed is lower. So the variation trend of the curved surface
is different when the process parameters belong to different
intervals.
5.2. Transverse shrinkage
The transverse shrinkage is strongly affected by the process
parameters in the bead-on-plate welding, as is proved by the weld-
ing experiments and FE simulations. Fig. 22(a) shows the interac-
tive effect of welding current and voltage on the transverse
shrinkage when the welding speed is 200 mm/min. It is observed
from the figure that the transverse shrinkage has a larger value
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4 FEM
EXP
0.2 ANN
0.0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Welding Heat Input (J/mm)
Fig. 33. Comparison plot of (a) angular distortion and (b) transverse shrinkage
obtained by FEM, EXP and ANN model.
when both current and voltage are located in the high-value zone,
while the shrinkage decreases with the decreasing of current and
voltage. Fig. 22(b) presents the interactive effect of speed and volt-
age on the transverse shrinkage. It is obvious from the contour plot
that along with the decreasing of speed and increasing of voltage,
the transverse shrinkage tends to become bigger. That is because
more nominal heat input is produced and absorbed in the bead-
on-plate welding under high voltage and low speed. The interac-
tive effect of speed and current on transverse shrinkage is shown
in Fig. 22(c). The surface morphology of Fig. 22(c) is similar to that
of Fig. 22(b). It can be observed from this figure that the transverse
shrinkage has a bigger value under slow speed and high welding
current. The variation trend of transverse shrinkage demonstrated
in these figures is very close to that exhibited by the results of
experiment and simulation as shown in Section 3.3.
5.3. Discussion on prediction of BP neural network
A back propagation neural (BPN) network model to predict the
welding deformations was developed in this study. The BPN model
was trained using the training samples obtained from the FE sim-
ulation results, then tested by the experiment data. In order to en-
sure the accuracy of the BPN model developed to predict angular
distortion and transverse shrinkage, the experimental results and
the predicted results using the developed BPN model were
compared. The correlation coefficient and percentage difference
between the predicted output and measured output were
calculated to give a better illustration of the BPN model thus
 L. Tian et al. / Materials and Design 54 (2014) 458–472
developed. The following sections show the results obtained by the
BPN model and their comparison with the simulation and experi-
mental results.
The regression analysis was performed to get the correlation
coefficient. The correlation coefficient is used to evaluate the rela-
tionship between the measured and predicted values. The line of
best fit for the training samples is shown in Figs. 23 and 24. It is
observed that correlation coefficients of 0.99978 and 0.99986 are
obtained for predicting the angular distortion and transverse
shrinkage by BPN model respectively, for training samples from
the FE simulation results. It is proved that the accurate angular dis-
tortion and transverse shrinkage could be given through appropri-
ate welding input parameters using BPN model.
The testing data obtained from the experiment is used as a new
input to verify the generalization ability of the BPN model devel-
oped in this study. The line of best fit for testing samples of BPN
model was plotted, as shown in Figs. 25 and 26. It is observed from
the figures that the correlation coefficients of 0.99404 and 0.995
are obtained for predicting the angular distortion and transverse
shrinkage by BPN model respectively, for testing samples from
the experimental results. The testing results show that the BPN
model has good generalization ability and can yield a proper pre-
dicted output under reasonable welding inputs.
A comparison plot of the predicted value by ANN and the calcu-
lated value by FEM of angular distortion and transverse shrinkage
are shown in Figs. 27 and 28 for training samples, respectively. It
can be observed from Figs. 27 and 28 that the values predicted
by BPN model are in good agreement with the simulation results
for the training samples. Figs. 29 and 30 show the comparison of
experimental and predicted angular distortion and transverse
shrinkage for the testing samples, respectively. The BPN model pre-
diction is close to the experimental results for the testing samples
as seen from the figures.
The percentage difference is used to measure the spread of
prediction error obtained by the BPN model for all the samples in
predicting the angular distortion and transverse shrinkage.
Percentage errors are calculated by the following equation:
the input data  predicted results
%Error ¼  100 ð11Þ
the input data
Figs. 31 and 32 show the percentage errors of the predicted re-
sults using the BPN model for angular distortion and transverse
shrinkage, respectively. It is observed from the figures that the pre-
diction error of the BPN model to predict angular distortion and
transverse shrinkage for bead-on-plate welding is well within the
allowable range. In general, the BPN model using the training sam-
ples is more accurate than that using testing samples due to the
inherent characteristics of error back propagation algorithm used
in the network model. The maximum error occurring when pre-
dicting the angular distortion is less than 8%, and when predicting
the transverse shrinkage, it is less than 9% for testing samples. The
percentage errors of the predicted results using BPN model for
training samples are basically less than 5%.
The comparison curves of welding deformations obtained from
three different methods, namely, finite element method (FEM),
experiment (EXP) and BPN model, give a further verification of
the BPN model developed in this study. Fig. 33(a) and (b) are for
comparison of angular distortion and transverse shrinkage, respec-
tively. It is observed from the figures that these curves have a good
agreement both in distribution shape and in magnitude. The curve
plotted by ANN model is more close to that of FEM compared to the
curve obtained by EXP. It proves that the BPN mode developed in
this study can be used as a predictor for angular distortion and
transverse shrinkage in a certain precision range.
471
6. Conclusions
From the foregoing analyses for the angular distortion and
transverse shrinkage in GTA bead-on-plate welding using the
methods of experiment, finite element simulation and BPN model,
the following conclusions can be drawn:
 The finite element model is established to study the angular dis-
tortion and transverse shrinkage in the GTA bead-on-plate
welding. Welding experiment is performed to verify the accu-
racy of the FE model developed. It is found that the angular dis-
tortion first increases to its maximum value at the threshold of
heat input, then decreases with the further increasing of heat
input, while the transverse shrinkage increases with the
increasing of heat input continuously.
 A BP neural network developed in this study from the finite ele-
ment data for the prediction of angular distortion and trans-
verse shrinkage can be employed to control the input
parameters in order to get appropriate outputs of welding dis-
tortions for given welding parameters. The accuracy of the BP
neural network is verified by the comparison between the
experimental results and the predicted results from the devel-
oped BPN model.
 It is observed from the results that a correlation coefficient of
about 0.99 is obtained between the experimental results and
predicted results from the BPN model developed. The percent-
age errors obtained for angular distortion and transverse
shrinkage are also relatively low. It proves that the BPN model
developed in this study is capable of making the prediction of
angular distortion and transverse shrinkage with acceptable
accuracy.
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