Modelling of the Steel High-Temperature Deformation Behaviour Using Artificial Neural Network

Abstract

Hot forming is an essential part of the manufacturing of most steel products. The hot deformation behaviour is determined by temperature, strain rate, strain and chemical composition of the steel. To date, constitutive models are constructed for many steels; however, their specific chemical composition limits their application. In this paper, a novel artificial neural network (ANN) model was built to determine the steel flow stress with high accuracy in the wide range of the concentration of the elements in high-alloyed, corrosion-resistant steels. The additional compression tests for stainless Cr12Ni3Cu steel were carried out at the strain rates of 0.1–10 s−1 and the temperatures of 900–1200 °C using thermomechanical simulator Gleeble 3800. The ANN-based model showed high accuracy for both training (the error was 6.6%) and approvement (11.5%) datasets. The values of the effective activation energy for experimental (410 ± 16 kJ/mol) and predicted peak stress values (380 ± 29 kJ/mol) are in good agreement. The implementation of the constructed ANN-based model showed a significant influence of the Cr12Ni3Cu chemical composition variation within the grade on the flow stress at a steady state of the hot deformation.