Artificial neural network modeling to predict the high temperature flow behavior of an AZ81 magnesium alloy

In the present work, the capability of artificial neural network (ANN) has been evaluated to describe and to predict the high temperature flow behavior of a cast AZ81 magnesium alloy. Toward this end, a set of isothermal hot compression tests were carried out in temperature range of 250–400 °C and strain rates of 0.0001, 0.001 and 0.01 s−1 up to a true strain of 0.6. The flow stress was primarily predicted by the hyperbolic laws in an Arrhenius-type of constitutive equation considering the effects of strain, strain rate and temperature. Then, a feed-forward back propagation artificial neural network with single hidden layer was established to investigate the flow behavior of the material. The neural network has been trained with an in-house database obtained from hot compression tests. The performance of the proposed models has been evaluated using a wide variety of statistical indices. The comparative assessment of the results indicates that the trained ANN model is more efficient and accurate in predicting the hot compressive behavior of cast AZ81 magnesium alloy than the constitutive equations.

► The hot compressive behavior of AZ81 Mg alloy was investigated.
► ANN model and constitutive equations were employed to predict the flow stress.
► Material constants, A and Q in the constitutive equations are functions of strain.
► High accuracy of ANN model comparing with constitutive equations.