An integrated FEM and ANN methodology for metal-formed product design

W.L. Chan, M.W. Fu

, J. Lu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 25 August 2007
Received in revised form
11 March 2008
Accepted 1 April 2008
Available online 2 June 2008
Keywords:
FEM simulation
Articial neural network
Metal forming
Metal-formed product design
Die design
Design solution evaluation
a b s t r a c t
In the traditional metal-formed product development paradigm, the design of metal-formed product
and tooling is usually based on heuristic know-how and experiences, which are generally obtained
through long years of apprenticeship and skilled craftsmanship. The uncertainties in product and
tooling design often lead to late design changes. The emergence of nite element method (FEM)
provides a solution to verify the designs before they are physically implemented. Since the design of
product and tooling is affected by many factors and there are many design variables to be considered,
the combination of those variables comes out with various design alternatives. It is thus not pragmatic
to simulate all the designs to nd out the best solution as the coupled simulation of non-linear plastic
ow of billet material and tooling deformation is very time-consuming. This research is aimed to
develop an integrated methodology based on FEM simulation and articial neural network (ANN) to
approximate the functions of design parameters and evaluate the performance of designs in such a way
that the optimal design can be identied. To realize this objective, an integrated FEM and ANN
methodology is developed. In this methodology, the FEM simulation is rst used to create training cases
for the ANN(s), and the well-trained ANN(s) is used to predict the performance of the design. In
addition, the methodology framework and implementation procedure are presented. To validate the
developed technique, a case study is employed. The results show that the developed methodology
performs well in estimation and evaluation of the design.
& 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In metal forming processes, tooling is subjected to compressive
force and dynamic stress. The dynamic stress is repeated for each
production shot and causes tooling fatigue failure. To have a long
service tooling and produce quality product, the tooling design is
critical as it is determined by various design parameters related to
forming process, tooling itself, deformed part and the equipment
used. Tooling fabrication, on the other hand, is a costly and non-
trivial process, which usually involves a lot of processes, machines
and raw materials. The design of tooling must thus be extensively
veried before they are physically realized. In traditional metal-
formed product development paradigm, the design of tooling and
product is based on experience which is obtained through
expensive and time-consuming trial-and-error; late design
changes are always needed. This kind of product development
paradigm often leads to high development cost and long time-to-
market. Therefore, the extensive evaluation of tooling design
solution and optimization is of importance. It could ensure right
design the rst time and reduce the trial-and-error in workshop.
To realize this objective, numerical simulation and modelling is
one of the powerful tools to address the issue. Many researches
have been conducted to apply the nite element method (FEM) in
product design and development. To name a few, Yang et al.
integrated CAD, CAE and rapid prototyping technology to analyse
and visualize the hot forging process in order to eliminate the
defects at the corner and at a rened local region (Yang et al.,
2002). Spider forging was used as a case study. In this research,
the rigid-plastic deformation of the deformation body was rst
analysed by FEM, and the workpieces at different forming stages
were then fabricated by laminated object manufacturing (LOM) to
study the formation of product defect. Fujikawa applied the FE
simulation to study the design parameters for the crankshaft
forging process (Fujikawa, 2000). Eight factors concerning the
material lling performance, forming load and the material
quantity were selected. In order to reduce the number of sim-
ulations, orthogonal array was employed to determine the critical
design combination. By using his proposed approach, he claimed
that the development cost could be reduced by 40% when
compared with the conventional trial-and-error approach. To
support the design of the whole metal-forming system, Fu et al.
proposed a simulation-based approach to assessing the design of
metal-forming system (Fu et al., 2006). Based on their study, an
integrated simulation framework for supporting metal-forming
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Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence
0952-1976/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engappai.2008.04.001

Corresponding author. Tel.: +85227665527.

E-mail address: mmmwfu@polyu.edu.hk (M.W. Fu).
Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181
system design was proposed and various design factors relating to
the quality of metal-formed product were articulated. The design
index was also proposed to evaluate the performance of different
forming system designs and nally the optimal design was
identied. Furthermore, he and his colleagues developed a
methodology for die life assessment through identication of
stress concentration region and the stress level for prediction
of tooling fatigue life (Tong et al., 2005). They used a case study of
bevel gear forging to test and verify the procedure and its
robustness.
By using the FEM simulation to support the design solution
generation in metal-forming product development, a critical issue
is the innite design alternatives via the conguration of different
design variables relating to metal-formed part design, process
determination and process parameter settings, tooling design and
material properties selection. To simulate all the design alter-
natives, it would be very difcult, if not impossible, as the coupled
simulation of tooling deformation and billet plastic ow is very
time-consuming. On the other hand, if only the selected design
scenarios are simulated, how to select those scenarios from the
whole design space is also an issue as the traditional design of
experiment (DoE) would not help a lot. Therefore, an interesting
research topic has been raised up: how to integrate the FEM
simulation with articial neural network (ANN) to signicantly
reduce the simulations, but not at the cost of losing the design
space which should be explored in searching for the optimal
design solution? This paper is to address this issue.
The ANN is a computational network that attempts to simulate
the process that occurs in the human brain and nervous system
during pattern recognition, information ltering and functional
control (Hagan et al., 1996). It uses an inductive approach to
generalize the inputoutput relationships to approximate the
desired functions; such specic capability is helpful when the case
is difcult to derive a mathematical model. This uniqueness
decides its promising applications in product design and devel-
opment, especially for metal-formed product development as the
relationship of the performance and behaviour of the designed
forming system with its design parameters is very difcult to be
represented as an explicit mathematical model. This raises an
interesting research topic on how to employ the ANN to help
product design and development. Currently, many researches
have been conducted. Sterjovski et al. introduced three ANNs to
predict the impact toughness of heat treated pressure vessel steel,
hardness of pipeline and tting steels after welding, and the hot
ductility and hot strength of microalloyed steels in continuous
casting process (Sterjovski et al., 2005). Their ANNs prediction
results were veried with actual experiments with good agree-
ment. Xing et al. presented a method to blend a smooth surface by
using ANN (Yuan et al., 2002). They used 9857 point coordinates
on the neighbouring surfaces as training data, 2500 point
coordinates inside the blending surface were computed by ANN.
The surface built by ANN approach was comparable with the
surface built by NURBS approach. In addition, Fuh et al. employed
ANN in estimation of plastic injection moulding production cost
(Fuh et al., 2004). Nineteen cost-related factors were identied
and historical cost data were collected to train up the ANN. They
found that the estimation could be more accurate by using
different ANNs structures for different cost range. Vassilopoulos
et al. used ANN to generalize the experimental data and
approximate the relationship between design parameters (orien-
tation angle of the bres, stress ratio, the maximum applied stress
and the amplitude of applied stress) and the fatigue life of
multidirectional composite laminates (Vassilopoulos et al., 2007).
In their study, only 50% of experimental data was enough to model
the fatigue life characteristics of the material. Raj et al. made use
of the advantages of FEM and ANN to model the hot upsetting, hot
extrusion and metal cutting processes (Hans Raj et al., 2000).
Different process parameter congurations were simulated by
FEM. The ANN was used to approximate the function based on
FEM results. The process load was estimated by presenting the
required process parameters to the ANN. They raised a new ANN
application in the automatic selection of tools and real-time
monitoring of tool wear. Lorenzo et al. applied ANN to predict
ductile fracture in cold forming operation. Five variables (effective
strain, tangential stress, effective stress, maximumprinciple stress
and mean stress) at the critical regions of workpiece in ve
forming steps were predicted by FEM, and those variables were
then inputted to the ANN for estimating the occurrence of ductile
fracture (Di Lorenzo et al., 2006). Ohdar and Pasha used ANN to
control the sinter-forged density of metal power preform. The
density was identied as a function of compacting pressure,
sintering temperature and percent reduction. Forty-six sets
experimental data under difference process parameters were
collected. Thirty-six of them were used as training samples, while
remaining 10 sets data were used to test the performance of ANN.
The testing result showed that the error was no more than 0.42%
(Ohdar and Pasha, 2003). Ko et al. utilized ANN to evaluate the
design in multi-stage metal-forming to avoid ductile fracture. In
their study, a cold heading process was optimized to demonstrate
and validate their proposed design method (Ko et al., 1998).
Furthermore, Kim and Kim utilized FEM to simulate the metal
forming behaviours with different billet dimension and tooling
design for the production of rib-web product and cylindrical
pulley, respectively (Kim and Kim, 2000). They made use of the
ANNs function approximation ability to nd the optimum design
to eliminate the under-lling defect of the rib-web product and
enhance the dimensional accuracy of the cylindrical pulley.
The above monolithic researches have shown that ANN has
promising and potential applications in industries. However, there
is a lack of extensive researches on developing a methodology to
integrate the ANN and FEM for product design and development.
This paper attempts to conduct a research in this niche area by
integrating the ANN and FEM simulation to support the metal-
formed product design.
In this research, a framework on the integrating FEM simula-
tion and ANN methodology to nd the desired parameter
conguration and optimal design solution is rst proposed. The
methodology utilizing the FEM to predict the mechanical
behaviours of design and employing the ANN to approximate
the non-linear relationship between the design parameters and
the mechanical behaviours of the designed forming system is
developed. To illustrate the detailed procedure and processes, a
case study is used to implement the developed methodology.
The results show the proposed methodology could estimate
the performances of different design solutions and identify the
best one.
2. Methodology
When optimizing design parameters, it is impractical to
simulate all the design combinations. The integrated FEM and
ANNs methodology proposed in this research can predict the
design behaviours based on the limited simulation of design
scenarios and identify the optimal design from the whole design
space. Fig. 1 presents the framework of the methodology for
product design and development.
From Fig. 1, it can be seen that the preliminary design is
conducted rstly. For metal-formed product development, it
involves the conceptualization of deformed part and tooling. In
this process, the design parameters are gured out. The design
parameters are related to part geometry, process route and
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W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1171
parameter conguration, and tooling geometry. To evaluate the
preliminary design based on design performance and production
efciency, design criteria are needed. The design criteria include
the amount and distribution of stress, strain and deformation
loading, etc. Among all the design parameters related to product,
tooling and process, the critical design parameters are selected
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Find ANNs structure
with lowest error
1). Select training cases
from OA
representation
3). FEM analysis
2). CAD model
ANN
Model 1
ANN
Model 2
ANN
Model n
Design
parameter
combination
1.) Define design
2.) Define critical
design parameters
parameters and
design criteria
Modify design
parameter(s)?
Acceptable result?
No
Add training case
to re-train the ANNs
FEM
Validation
Consistent?
Tooling
Facbrication
Yes
No
Possible design
parameter
combination(s)
Acceptable result?
No
Mechanical
Behavior 1
Mechanical
Behavior n
Mechanical
Behavior 2
+
Cut the performance surface
graph by the corresponding
trimming plan at the defined
performance level
Define required
performances level
Performance
surface graphs
Assembly all the remaining
performance surface graph
Yes
Yes
Lower design
requirement (s)?
No
Yes
Re-design
the product
No
Yes
Redesign
the product
-
Full factorial design
in pre-defined level
Preliminary design
Training case generation
Well trained ANN models
Training ANNs
Approach 1: Direct ANNs output
Approach 2: Output
Approach 2: post-process
Approach 1
Start Here!
Approach 2
Start Here!
Approach 1 Approach 2
Fig. 1. Integrated FEM and ANN framework.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1172
and their variation range is determined. The critical design
parameters will generate different design scenarios through the
combination and conguration of these critical design para-
meters. The training cases can then be selected among those
combinations by using an appropriate orthogonal array (Ross,
1996). The geometry of training case is modelled in CAD systems
while the mechanical performances are simulated by CAE
systems. The design parameter combinations of the training cases
and its corresponding FEM results are used as the sources to train
up different ANNs for different mechanical performances estima-
tion purpose. Since many ANNs congurations can be successfully
trained, the number of validation cases is used to nd the
appropriate conguration with lowest average error for each ANN.
The average error of the validation cases is determined by
average error
P
n
i1
jr
i;a
r
i;e
=r
i;a
j 100%
i
n
(1)
where r
i,a
and r
i,e
are the actual and estimated results of the ith
validation case, respectively, and n is the number of the validation
cases.
Once the ANNs have been well trained, there are two
approaches to utilize them to yield the optimized design con-
guration, as shown in Fig. 1. For the rst approach, the mec-
hanical performance estimation can be directly obtained from the
corresponding ANN by inputting a design parameter combination.
Different design parameter combinations can be explored to nd
the satisfactory mechanical performances estimated by ANNs.
For the second approach, the ANNs are used to generate the
corresponding performance surface graph which represents the
estimated mechanical performance for the full factorial design. As
shown in Fig. 2, the X-Y plan of the surface graph indicates all the
design parameter combination in pre-dened level, which is an
example of the X-Y plan of the performance surface graph with six
design parameters in three levels. The letters from a to e represent
the design parameters from 1 to 6 respectively, while the numbers
1 to 3 designate the level of the corresponding parameter. For
example, d2 represents the second level of the design parameter 4.
Each design parameter combination is allocated an X-Y coordinate.
The design parameter combination of a1, b1, c1, d1, e1, f1 is located
at the original. The position of each combination is arranged to
make the neighbour combinations only varying one level of a
parameter so as to form a smooth surface. The Z-axis of the
surface graph indicates the estimated mechanical behaviour
performance. Fig. 3 shows an example of performance surface
graph. After different performance surfaces are formed, they are
used to nd the possible design scenarios. As shown in Fig. 4, the
performance surfaces are generated by ANNs and the trimming
plan is set at the critical mechanical behaviour level in the
corresponding performance surface. The trimming plan is em-
ployed to cut the performance surfaces, the remaining surface
shows all the possible design scenarios which can fulll the
corresponding mechanical performance requirements. Finally, the
remaining surfaces are assembled. The overlapping region shows
the possible design scenarios that can meet all the dened design
requirements. Usually, if more performance surfaces are used
(more design requirements), the overlapping area of the as-
sembled remaining surfaces will be decreased. This implies that
less number of possible design scenarios meet all the design
requirements.
For the above both approaches, if the results estimated by
ANNs are accepted, the model will be validated by FEM. If the
results are consistent, the design solution is accepted. Otherwise,
that model will become a training case for the ANNs in order to
make the ANNs more knowledgeable. After that, another
suggested solution from the upgraded ANNs can be obtained
and validated by FEM simulation again. If there is none of
the results estimated by ANNs can full the design require-
ments, the product has to be re-designed, different product and
tooling geometry parameters and process parameters should be
considered.
In this design framework, the rst approach is more direct
to check the mechanical performances with dened design
parameter combination. It is more convenient to optimize
design with only few requirements. For the second approach,
it has to go through some post-processing procedure. How-
ever, it can easily nd all the possible optimal results in the case
which has a lot of design requirements. Both the proposed
approaches are more effective to yield an optimal design as the
number of time consuming FEM simulation can be reduced
signicantly.
2.1. CAE simulation
CAE simulation technology utilizes nite element technique to
reveal the mechanical behaviours of forming systems. To simulate
a forming system, the geometry of each die component and the
workpiece are modelled in CAD system. The nished CAD models
are then converted to a data exchange format such as STL, IGES,
and STEP in such a way that they can be imported to CAE systems
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Fig. 2. X-Y plan of the performance graph (six parameters in three level).
Fig. 3. Performance surface graph.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1173
for simulation. Before the model is analysed, pre-processing is
needed, which includes nine steps.
(1) input and assemble the components;
(2) dene the model deformation type (rigid, elastic or plastic
body);
(3) select element type, mesh density and meshing;
(4) set material properties for the model;
(5) set initial and boundary conditions (e.g. temperature, friction,
symmetry, etc.);
(6) dene tooling motion;
(7) set the number of simulation step;
(8) dene termination conditions;
(9) set the value for convergence criteria.
With all the above settings, the model can be simulated. The
simulation results can then be obtained in post-processing stage.
2.2. Design parameters and evaluation criteria
For the tooling design, there are two critical criteria to evaluate
its performance, namely the maximum deformation load and
maximum von Mises effective stress. The deformation load not
only determines the die stress but also the size of the forming
machine, which is further related to the production cost. The level
of deformation load is related to the billet design, process
determination, part geometry, tooling structure and the billet
material properties. Most of the tooling failure is caused by tooling
fatigue, which is further determined by cycle stress located at the
stress concentrated region (Fu et al., 2006). von Mises effective
stress is the combined representation of stress components s
ij
.
Therefore, it can be used to evaluate the tooling fatigue life cycle.
Based on the stress simulation results, material properties, the
geometry of the tooling and the part and design requirements, the
critical design parameters and its variable range can be dened.
3. Case study
To illustrate the integrated FEM and ANN methodology and
how it is used to predict the mechanical behaviours of a metal-
forming system, a radial metal-forming product is used as a case
study. Fig. 5(a) and (b) show the geometry and dimension of the
formed part and punch, respectively. Fig. 5(c) shows the die
assembly.
3.1. Simulation models
All the components geometry in Fig. 5 were modelled by a
commercial CAD system, viz., Pro/E, and then exported to a CAE
simulation system, DEFORM 3D system. The punch and billet
were considered as elastic and plastic bodies, respectively. The
punch material is M2, which is high alloyed, high speed tool steel
with Youngs modulus of 250GPa and Poisson ratio of 0.3. The
billet material is AISI 1016. In addition, the tetrahedral element is
used for meshing. The punch is meshed into 20,000 elements and
the billet model is 16,000 elements.
Through simulation, the simulation results are available. Fig. 6
shows the deformation load variation in the entire forming
process. The stress level of the punch at the most severe stress
concentration region is critical to qualify the die fatigue life of the
system. Fig. 7 illustrates the stress concentration at the second
radius corner with the maximum stress.
3.2. Orthogonal array
In the conventional application of ANN, the training cases are
from historical or experimental data (Fuh et al., 2004; Ohdar and
Pasha, 2003). The training data range may be limited. It may not
accurately predict the result beyond the training data range. The
training cases of this paper, however, are generated by FEM
simulation. The parameter combinations can be designed accord-
ing to the study. In this case study, six variable design parameters
were dened based on the simulation results in Section 3.1; they
are shown in Fig. 8. If the ve levels of each parameter were
studied, there were 15,625 combinations in total. The criteria to
select the training cases are the data range should be wider than
required and well distributed. Therefore, the orthogonal array is
employed which would suggest using less simulation to nd out
the relationship between parameters (Ko et al., 1998). L25
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Fig. 4. Trimming and assemble process of the performance surface graphs.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1174
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Fig. 5. Die structure: (a) punch design; (b) part design and (c) die assembly.
Fig. 6. Deformation load: (a) section of the deformed part and (b) the variation of deformation load.
Fig. 7. The maximum stress location and distribution: (a) stress distribution at the last forming step and (b) maximum stress variation.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1175
orthogonal array was used as reference to select the combination
as training case for the ANNs.
There are 25 design combinations in the selected L25
orthogonal array. Some parameters combinations were conicted
each other in this case study. Therefore, these combinations have
been modied. In order to reduce the computation time, a quarter
of model was simulated for each case. All the parameter
combinations of the training case and the corresponding simula-
tion results are shown in Table 1.
3.3. Network training and testing
The ANNs were built and trained in Matlab environment. The
training process adjusts the weight of each neuron to an
appropriate value. There are many available training algorithms,
but the most popular one is the error back-propagation algorithm
(Hagan et al., 1996; Sterjovski et al., 2005; Yuan et al., 2002; Fuh
et al., 2004; Vassilopoulos et al., 2007; Fonseca et al., 2003) and it
was used in this study. There is no strict rule for design of the ANN
structure. However, the number of neurons in the hidden layers is
critical to determine the complexity level of the function. If the
desired function has a large number of inection points, more
number of neurons in the hidden layer is needed (Hagan et al.,
1996), but it also needs more number of training cycle to be
converged. Termination criteria are 50,000 training cycles or 0.001
mean square error (mse). The mse is calculated as
mse
1
Q
X
Q
k1
ek
2

1
Q
X
Q
k1
tk ak
2
(2)
where Q is total number of training case, t(k) represents the kth
training cases target error while a(k) represents the kth trainings
actual output Matlab.
Random weighing was set for the rst learning cycles. The
learning rate was set as 0.01. The learning rate plays an important
role for the learning algorithm. In general, a larger value results in
the fast convergence. But the algorithm becomes unstable that
may cause the increase of error. On the other hand, a smaller value
can yield a more accuracy result, but longer time to converge
(Matlab; Bai et al., 2007). In this research, different network
congurations with difference number of hidden layers and
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Fig. 8. Design parameters: (a) part parameters; (b) punch parameters and (c) local illustration of punch.
Table 1
The detail design combinations and corresponding results of the training cases
Trained design parameters Results
Parameters 1 2 3 4 5 6 Max. load (N) Punch-eff. stress (MPa)
Case 1 0 1 13 40 1 20 4,36,000 2820
Case 2 0 2.75 3.25 42.5 0.5 22.5 4,40,000 3250
Case 3 0 4.5 6.5 45 0 25 3,96,000 2750
Case 4 5 6.25 6.5 47.5 0.5 27.5 3,48,000 2410
Case 5 7.5 8 0 50 1 30 3,29,000 2340
Case 6 2.5 2.75 6.5 45 0.5 30 4,53,000 3160
Case 7 5 2.75 9.25 47.5 1 20 3,95,000 2820
Case 8 10 4.5 9.25 50 1 22.5 3,08,000 2080
Case 9 7.5 6.25 9.25 40 0.5 25 3,68,000 2370
Case 10 10 8 0 42.5 0 27.5 3,13,000 2020
Case 11 2.5 1 13 50 0.5 27.5 3,96,000 2990
Case 12 5 2.75 9.25 40 0 30 3,76,000 2540
Case 13 0 1 13 42.5 0.5 20 4,35,000 2920
Case 14 5 6.25 0 45 1 22.5 3,56,000 2350
Case 15 5 8 3.25 47.5 1 25 3,50,000 2510
Case 16 2.5 4.5 9.25 42.5 1 25 3,32,000 2280
Case 17 0 1 13 45 1 27.5 5,14,000 3320
Case 18 7.5 4.5 9.25 47.5 0.5 30 2,96,000 2000
Case 19 7.5 6.25 3.25 50 0 20 3,44,000 2320
Case 20 7.5 8 6.5 40 0.5 22.5 3,31,000 2150
Case 21 2.5 1 13 47.5 0 22.5 3,85,000 2770
Case 22 2.5 2.75 0 50 0.5 25 4,11,000 2940
Case 23 10 4.5 3.25 40 1 27.5 3,54,000 2330
Case 24 10 6.25 6.5 42.5 1 30 3,35,000 2350
Case 25 10 8 0 45 -0.5 20 3,32,000 2290
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1176
neurons have been tested and validated with eight validation
cases as shown in Table 2. Those combinations did not fall into the
full-factorial table with same number of design parameter and its
level of the training case (six parameters with ve levels). To
evaluate which network conguration is the preferred one, Eq. (1)
is used to nd their average error for comparison. Among different
tested congurations, the smallest average errors were 7.75% and
8.75% for the ANN model in terms of the von Mises effective stress
prediction and load prediction, respectively. Fig. 9 shows the
conguration of ANN to estimate the effective stress, while Fig. 10
shows the conguration of ANN to estimate the deformation load.
The rst model consists of three hidden layers; the rst hidden
layer is composed of ve neurons while the each of others is
composed of 10 neurons. The second model consists of three
hidden layers. The rst layer is composed of 10 neurons while the
each of other layer was composed of 40 neurons. In both models,
all neurons in hidden layers used transfer function of hyperbolic
tangent sigmoid:
f x
e
x
e
x
e
x
e
x
(3)
The output layer used the following linear function:
f x x (4)
3.4. Estimation of mechanical performances
In order to demonstrate the ANNss ability to generalize the
training data, the ANNs direct output method (the approach one
as stated in Section 2) was used to estimate the deformation load
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Table 2
Validation cases and results
Design combinations Results
Parameter 1 2 3 4 5 6 Max. load
(N) (FEM)
Max. load
(N) (ANN)
Max. load
error (%)
Punch-eff.
stress (MPa) (FEM)
Punch-eff.
stress (MPa) (ANN)
Max. stress
error (%)
Case 1 0 8 3 50 1 25 3,16,000 3,62,000 14.56 2320 2440 5.17
Case 2 0 2 5 40 0.5 20 4,33,000 4,43,000 2.31 2670 2840 6.37
Case 3 2 3 8 45 0 30 3,76,000 4,60,000 22.34 2590 3150 21.62
Case 4 3 4 5 48 1 23 3,87,000 3,93,000 1.55 2630 2660 1.14
Case 5 4 5 6 42 0 26 3,21,000 3,43,000 6.85 2140 2400 12.15
Case 6 5 3 8 42 0.5 25 3,97,000 3,66,000 7.81 2800 2650 5.36
Case 7 8 5 3 46 1 25 3,87,000 3,43,000 11.37 2700 2450 9.26
Case 8 10 8 0 45 1 24 3,15,000 3,25,000 3.17 2220 2240 0.90
Average error: 8.75 Average error: 7.75
Fig. 9. ANN structure for evaluating the maximum von Mises effective stress of the punch.
Fig. 10. ANN structure for evaluating the forming load of the punch.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1177
and the effective stress of the input design parameter combina-
tion. The FEMs and ANNs results with varying the level of only
one parameter, and the combinations which did not fall into the
full-factorial table with same number of design parameter and its
level of the training case (six parameters with ve levels) are
compared. Figs. 1116 show the comparison of the FEMs and
ANNs results about the effective stress and deformation load,
respectively. The result shows the ANNs prediction gave a
satisfactory agreement with the FEMs result.
3.5. Estimation of desired design parameter combinations
The well-trained ANNs were used to estimate the mechanical
performances of the potential combinations, which could full the
pre-dened design criteria, viz., the maximumvon Mises effective
stress is less than 2.5GPa and the deformation load is less than
350kN. Firstly, a three-level combination table was generated and
shown in Fig. 2. This combination table was used to form the X-Y
plane for the surface graph. Each stress and deformation load
results were estimated by the well-trained ANNs. These results
would be represented by the Z-axis coordinate for the corre-
sponding combination. The formed performance surface graphs
are shown in Fig. 17.
In order to nd all the possible combinations, plans at the
2.5GPa stress level and 350kN loading level were set in the
corresponding graph as shown in Fig. 18. The plane cuts off
the upper surface in each graph and the lower surface is retained.
The section of the remaining stress and load surface were then
assembled. The area of the overlap regions as shown in Fig. 19,
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Von Mises Effective Stress
Validation (Parameter 1)
V
o
n

M
i
s
e
s

E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

S
t
r
e
s
s
(
G
P
A
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANNs
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Load Validation (Parameter 1)
L
o
a
d

(
k
N
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANNs
2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Fig. 11. Comparison of FEMs and ANNs results with different level of parameter 1.
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Von Mises Effective Stress
Validation (Parameter 2)
V
o
n

M
i
s
e
s

E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

S
t
r
e
s
s
(
G
P
A
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANN
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Load Validation (Parameter 2)
L
o
a
d

(
k
N
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANN
2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Fig. 12. Comparison of FEMs and ANNs results with different level of parameter 2.
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Von Mises Effective Stress
Validation (Parameter 3)
V
o
n

M
i
s
e
s

E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

S
t
r
e
s
s
(
G
P
A
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANNs
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Load Validation (Parameter 3)
L
o
a
d

(
k
N
)
FEM
ANNs
2 3 4 5
1
Parameter Level
2 3 4 5
Fig. 13. Comparison of FEMs and ANNs results with different level of parameter 3.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1178
which indicate the suggested combinations and could meet
both design criteria, viz. stress was less than 2.5GPa and the
loading was less than 350kN. Some of the suggested combina-
tions, however, were unachievable due to the conict of
parameter conguration and they were thus eliminated. The
design scenarios close to the contour of the overlapping section
are the marginal cases, which may not meet the design
requirements. Therefore, it is conservative to choose the cases
at the centre of overlapping section or far away from the contour.
Fig. 20 shows the remaining suggested solutions and four selected
validation cases. The result shows the good agreement with the
FEM result as shown in Table 3. Among the four cases, case 4 has
the largest error with 5.73% for deformation load estimation
and 7.22% for von Mises effective stress estimation. The ave-
rage error for the estimation of maximum deformation load is
2.55%, while the average error for the estimation of maximum
stress is 2.99%. When comparing the estimation accuracy with
Section 3.4, it can be found the validation agreement in this
approach is better. This is because all the combinations in the
performance surface graph fall into the full-factorial table
with the same number of design parameter and its level of the
training case (six parameters with ve levels). Those combina-
tions (input pattern) are more favourable to be recognized by the
well-trained ANNs.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Von Mises Effective Stress
Validation (Parameter 4)
V
o
n

M
i
s
e
s

E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

S
t
r
e
s
s
(
G
P
A
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANNs
0
100
200
300
400
500
L
o
a
d

(
k
N
)
FEM
ANNs
Load Validation (Parameter 4)
2 3 4 5
1
Parameter Level
2 3 4 5
Fig. 14. Comparison of FEMs and ANNs results with different level of parameter 4.
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
Von Mises Effective Stress
Validation (Parameter 5)
V
o
n

M
i
s
e
s

E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

S
t
r
e
s
s
(
G
P
A
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANN
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Load Validation (Parameter 5)
L
o
a
d

(
k
N
)
FEM
ANN
2 3 4 5 1
Parameter Level
2 3 4 5
Fig. 15. Comparison of FEMs and ANNs results with different level of parameter 5.
1
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
Von Mises Effective Stress
Validation (Parameter 6)
V
o
n

M
i
s
e
s

E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

S
t
r
e
s
s
(
G
P
A
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANNs
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Load Validation (Parameter 6)
L
o
a
d

(
k
N
)
Parameter Level
FEM
ANNs
2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Fig. 16. Comparison of FEMs and ANNs results with different level of parameter 6.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1179
4. Conclusions
In the traditional product development paradigm, product
design parameters are determined by experience. Even with the
emergence of FEM simulation technology, it cannot easily nd the
best design as it is impossible to conduct all the simulation for any
given point in the design space. In metal forming, a forming
system usually involves a lot of design parameters. A subtle
change of any parameter will constitute a new design scenario
and a new simulation is needed to explore its behaviours and
performance. It is not pragmatic to nd the optimal solution
through one-by-one simulation. To address this issue, the
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 18. Trimming plan and the remaining surfaces: (a) stress level surface graph and (b) load level surface graph.
Fig. 17. Design criteria representation: (a) stress performance surface graph and (b) load performance surface graph.
Fig. 19. The retained sections after trimming: (a) loading level surface graph; (b) stress level surface graph and (c) overlap section.
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1180
integrated FEM and ANN methodology developed in this research
can effectively nd out the highly non-linear relationship between
the design parameters and the mechanical behaviours of the
design. In this research, two design approaches were proposed to
evaluate the design and nd the desired design parameter
combination. To verify the developed methodology, a case study
was presented to validate the performance of ANN and demon-
strate the implementation procedure. All the validation results
show the estimation of ANN can achieve satisfactory level,
especially the estimation of combinations which fall into the
full-factorial table with the same number of design parameter and
level of the training case. The developed design and optimization
methodology helps evaluate the quality of design at the up-front
of design stage and thus can greatly reduce the simulation time
and make it possible to search for the optimal design in the whole
design space.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the grant support with the
project of ITS/028/07 from the Innovation and Technology
Commission of Hong Kong Government and the project of G-
YF67 from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to support this
research.
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ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 20. The remaining suggested combination and the selected validation case.
Table 3
Validation case results in the overlapping region
Design congurations Results
Parameter 1 2 3 4 5 6 FEM-max.
load (N)
ANN-max.
load (N)
Max. load
error (%)
FEM-max.
stress (MPa)
ANN-max.
stress (MPa)
Max. stress
error (MPa)
Case 1 0 8 6.5 40 1 25 3,29,000 3,31,000 0.61 2260 2300 1.77
Case 2 5 4.5 0 50 0 30 3,40,000 3,50,000 2.94 2390 2340 2.09
Case 3 10 4.5 0 45 1 25 3,31,000 3,34,000 0.91 2330 2310 0.86
Case 4 10 8 0 40 1 20 3,14,000 3,32,000 5.73 1940 2080 7.22
Average error: 2.55 Average error: 2.99
W.L. Chan et al. / Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence 21 (2008) 11701181 1181