Journal of Materials Processing Technology 125±126 (2002) 464±470

On-line tool condition monitoring and control system

in forging processes
L.X. Konga,*, S. Nahavandib
a
Centre for Advanced Manufacturing Research, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia
b
School of Engineering and Technology, Deakin University, Geelong, Vic. 3217, Australia
Received 17 December 2001; received in revised form 8 February 2002; accepted 20 February 2002

Abstract

Cold bulk metal forming has made large-scale production of small complex solid parts economically feasible. Tooling used in metal
forming poses many uncertainties in the preliminary cost estimation and production process and continual tool replacement and maintenance
dramatically reduces productivity and raises manufacturing cost. In order to tackle this, an on-line tool condition monitoring system using
arti®cial neural network (ANN) to integrate information from multiple sensors for forging process has been developed. Together with the
force, acoustic emission signals and process conditions, information developed from theoretical models is integrated into the ANN tool
monitoring system to predict tool life and provide the maintenance schedule.
# 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Forging process; On-line monitoring and control; Arti®cial neural networks; Model integration

1. Introduction The application of arti®cial neural networks (ANNs) in

The process of bulk metal forming, such as the forging
process, involves several dies and punches used progressively
to form a part. Tooling is critical to the bulk forming process
and presents many uncertainties in the preliminary cost esti-
mation and the production process, and can be responsible for
5±30% of the manufacturing cost [1]. Due to the high initial
costs for tooling and set-up, this metal forming process is only
economically viable with large-scale production.
Continual tool replacement and maintenance will drama-
tically reduce productivity and raise the production costs per
piece. With the replacement of tooling there will be costs
incurred in the down time of the machine, reworking of tools
and the post-handling of repaired tools [1]. There are a
number of different operational aspects leading to tooling
failures, e.g., fracture, pick-up, plastic deformation and
wear. These tooling defects have a direct negative in¯uence
on the quality of ®nished products. Any tooling degradation
can result in surface and dimensional defects. Catastrophic
failure with tooling and machinery contributes to a rise in
manufacturing costs. The inability to detect and replace
defective tooling in bulk forming operations will result in
the manufacture of considerable amount of scrap.
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: ‡61-8-8302-5117; fax: ‡61-8-8302-5292.
E-mail address: lingxue.kong@unisa.edu.au (L.X. Kong).
metal forming can be seen in the process planning of metal
forming operations. Osakada applied ANN techniques to
determine suitable forming methods from the ®nal product
shape and for the prediction of the number of forming stages
required. Osakada and Yang [2] also predicted the location
of the die fractures and surface defects in the ®nal product
using ANNs. ANNs have also been coupled with the ®nite
element method to predict forces and initial billet sizes, to
design the tool geometry, and to predict loading forces
during the metal forming process.
To detect any tool abnormality, the development and
implementation of an on-line monitoring tool is desirable
for bulk metal forming industry, which ensures the replace-
ment of defective tools, elongates the tool life, maintains
product quality and reduces machine down time. An on-line
tool condition monitoring and control system is developed in
the current work for a forging process using ANN and data
fusion methodology. This method can be used for other cold
bulk metal forming processes as well.
2. On-line tool condition monitoring system
A multi-layer feed forward network with error-back-
propagation was used to monitor tool conditions of a cold
forging process. Based on incremental information acquired

0924-0136/02/$ ± see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 4 - 0 1 3 6 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 3 6 7 - 9
 L.X. Kong, S. Nahavandi / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 125±126 (2002) 464±470
using a speci®c data acquisition system, a data management
system was developed to preprocess the data, compare it to
the designed tool life and real tool history, predict the
remaining tool life, and provide an optimum tool mainte-
nance schedule after taking account of the tooling usage
conditions.
There are three major components in the tooling monitor-
ing system: material properties, processing conditions, and
the model used to predict and monitor the tooling conditions.
Material properties include those of tooling, lubricant and
workpiece material. The processing conditions are velocity,
pressure, temperature and other parameters which vary
during the production. The theoretical model which corre-
lates the material properties and the production conditions to
the tooling life should consider the processing history and
the quality of products.
Adequate digital signal processing hardware and acquisi-
tion software to measure acoustic emission and forces will
be used to ensure the accuracy of the measurement. Acoustic
emission sensors will be used to collect signals of the in-feed
material and to monitor the state of the tooling. Piezoelectric
sensors will collect force signals generated during the metal
forming process. Any abnormalities occurring in the pro-
cess, either from the tool, in-feed material or machinery will
be recorded on the acoustic emission and force signals.
Acoustic emission and force signals are highly sensitive
to any forms of fracture, deformation, material removal and
material pick-up. The on-line tool monitoring system (Fig. 1)
will provide the state of tool wear and indicates whether the
tool needs to be replaced.
ANNs, which are based on the principle of human brain
process, will be used in this work to predict the tooling
conditions and to monitor the forging process. The ANNs
can solve complex and nonlinear problems, with the ability
of using current and historical data [3]. The use of historical
data is of particular importance in this work since the tooling
conditions are in¯uenced, not only by the current processing
conditions, but more heavily by the previous processing
history. The current processing information is a contribution
of the processing history and the current machine set-up.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the ANN application in metal bulk forming.
465
There are many types of ANNs available depending on the
application. Multiplayer back-propagation feed forward
ANN is one of the most popular ANNs used for industrial
applications. What type of ANN model to use depends on
the complexity of the problem. The selection of the neural
network, the number of neurones in each layer and the
transfer function of each layer will affect the performance
and the ANN decision-making capabilities.
ANNs are capable of performing complex functions such
as adaptation, generalisation and target learning. The princi-
ple of neural networks is that the input layer sends the input
signals to the hidden layers and then to the output layers. At
the output layers, the desired and the actual outputs are
compared. From this the system error is evaluated. The error
is then employed to adjust the connection weights amongst
the neurones in the network. This is commonly known as the
error-back-propagation. Initial weights between the neurones
is established during the training stage based on the presented
input signals [4]. Within each iteration, the network becomes
more knowledgeable about the system to which it is applied.
There are numerous works in the application of ANN in
machining processes as an on-line tool monitoring system.
Much of the work investigates the use of various input
parameters and ANN architects to monitor tool wear asso-
ciated with machining [4].
An ANN consists of nodes all connected together in a
particular structure and organised in layers [4]. This multi-
player ANN has three layers: input, hidden and output
layers. If there is no hidden layer in an ANN, it is a linear
ANN. Although more than one hidden layer can be used,
an ANN with one hidden layer generally can solve most
of the problems. The input layer of the proposed network
will include acoustic emission signals of the workpiece
material and the tool, the force generated during metal
forming, and process parameters such as tool temperature,
stroke rate, and lubrication condition of the in-feed mate-
rial. The outputs provided by the network will be: state of
the tool wear (tool diameters and die edge pro®les) and an
indicator to establish whether a tool is usable or not
(Fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Diagram of the proposed on-line tool monitoring system.
466 L.X. Kong, S. Nahavandi / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 125±126 (2002) 464±470
3. Monitoring techniques
Tool monitoring techniques can be divided into direct
monitoring and indirect monitoring. Direct monitoring pro-
vides accurate results but is dif®cult to implement. Hence, in
the developmental stage, the indirect method will be used,
since the parameters to be monitored change as a result of
increasing tool wear.
Due to the development of sensory technology, tool wear
can be monitored by force, vibration, acoustic emission,
motor power, noise level and eddy currents. For the applica-
tion of monitoring the tool wear in these forging processes,
force and acoustic emission will be suitable. The correlation
of the measured force and the acoustic emission to the tool
condition is performed using ANN. The force and acoustic
sensors will collect signals corresponding to the particular
characteristics of the tools used in the forging process. The
signals are collected through a data acquisition system.
3.1. Force signals
Breitling [5] successfully used various in-die sensors to
monitor force signals generated in a stamping process. Force
signals have also been collected and used effectively for tool
monitoring purposes in turning operations [4,6,7]. In bulk
metal forming process, an axial force is developed as the
forming punch is used to form the metal workpiece.
Any geometrical changes to the tooling due to progressive
wear are expected to be evident in the associated forces
generated. Changes to the workpiece, both on the surface
and dimension, can be observed as an indication of varia-
tions in the generated force. The lubrication conditions will
contribute signi®cantly to the force signal and consequently,
Fig. 3. Typical force signals [8]: (a) forward extrusion; (b) upsetting.
to tool wear, which in turn, in¯uences force signals in the
following cycles.
Traditionally, the most important parameters for a forging
engineer when selecting the correct forging equipment have
been maximum load and the energy requirement. Load
versus displacement curves (force signals being a time-
based equivalent where displacement is a function of forging
press velocity) are therefore familiar to this industry. For a
given part geometry, characteristic shapes occur (Fig. 3(a))
for each of the various forming operations [8], with the
absolute load values varying primarily with the ¯ow stress of
the material and with the frictional conditions [9] in an
extrusion process. From Fig. 3(a), the force increases
abruptly at the early stage of the extrusion process with
the header pushing the material through the die. As the ram
retracts off the workpiece during the return stroke, the force
reduces providing relief to the material. However, in the
upsetting process, the force signal (Fig. 3(b)) is quite
different from the one observed in the extrusion process
(Fig. 3(a)), which means that different model has to be used.
Strain gauges and piezoelectric sensors have been used to
assess force signals for process monitoring purposes in
industrial applications. Data acquired during normal pro-
duction operations (Fig. 4) describe how an increasing
forging force for consecutive parts in an upsetting operation
correlated with a tooling misalignment. It is found that
among the force patterns for 85 parts shown in Fig. 4(a),
most of them are very stable with only a limited variation in
peak stress. However, after part 75, the peak force begins to
increase to a level much higher than the normal conditions.
The discrepancy was observed by the operator and the
machine was stopped to have the production line checked.
The force patterns for parts 1 and 83 are compared in
 L.X. Kong, S. Nahavandi / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 125±126 (2002) 464±470 467

Fig. 4. Measured forces in an upsetting process: (a) peak forces for a series of successive parts: (b) measured forces for parts 1 and 83.

Fig. 4(b) and it is found that there was an increase of 10% in
peak force between the two parts.
The increase in force during the constrained upset portion
of the process (typically the time of maximum load as the
deforming metal is being forced into corners of the die) was
found to be due to an extensive pick-up of metal inside the
die. The misalignment was causing the shank of each part to
scrape on the die as it entered resulting in deposition of
metal. In contrast to this fault, which was clearly indicated in
the measured force, another fault arose due to the rotation of
the part between the process stages. This caused pronounced
deformation but did not dramatically affect the force pattern
(Fig. 5).
The relative insensitivity of the force pattern to the process
variation that produced defective products can be explained
by the location of the force sensor. When considering mon-
itoring in a production environment, it is desirable to mount
the sensor at an easily accessible location where it will not be
prone to damage. However, such locations are typically
remote from the tool±workpiece interface and consequently,
acquired force signals have to include dynamic effects of the
press, in addition to information about workpiece deforma-
tion. Certainly force patterns acquired from in-die sensors
will be more accurate if the sensors are closer to the die and
workpiece surface. The difference in the force pattern taken
with sensors at different locations is shown in Fig. 6.
It is apparent that for a bulk deformation process in a
production situation, the quality of acquired information and
the effectiveness of monitoring in detecting deviations using
one response variable are only dependent on the sensor
location and the response of interest. While process varia-
tions have been found to in¯uence the generated force, the
data support the proposition that a multisensor approach is
necessary for effective monitoring of tool wear. As a con-
468 L.X. Kong, S. Nahavandi / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 125±126 (2002) 464±470

Fig. 5. Comparison of force patterns for normal and deformed parts.

sequence of the advantageous features, the piezoelectric
sensors, embedded in dies, will form an important part of
the tool monitoring system.
3.2. Tool acoustic emission monitoring
Acoustic emission signals are high frequency stress waves
due to the rapid release of strain energy by materials sub-
jected to fracture, deformation, movement of dislocations
and grain boundaries, phase transformations, delamination,
etc. [10]. Acoustic emission signals can be classi®ed into
two types of signals: continuous (low amplitude and high
frequency: 100±400 kHz) and burst-type (high amplitude
and low frequency: 100±150 kHz). Acoustic emission sig-
nals can be analysed by fast Fourier transforms (FFTs) or by
statistical analysis.
Much work has been conducted in employing acoustic
emission signals in tool condition monitoring. Inasaki [11]

Fig. 6. Extrusion force signals: (a) sensor in press ram; (b) in-die sensor.
 L.X. Kong, S. Nahavandi / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 125±126 (2002) 464±470
employed acoustic emission sensors in tool condition mon-
itoring in machining processes and found that the acoustic
emission signals were affected by physical events.
As part of a tool, for tool condition monitoring in bulk
metal forming, acoustic emission will be used to monitor
tool wear and indicates any onset of any abnormal or
catastrophic tool failure during the process.
3.3. Sensory fusion
Multi-sensor integration improves the performance and
reliability of process monitoring. Sensors developed so far
have limitations in machine tool monitoring. Data fusion of
multiple sensors can be approached statistically or can be
approached through methods that require training such as
least-squares regression, the group method of data handling
and neural networks. This work focuses on an ANN to
perform sensory fusion. The advantages of neural networks
integrating and fusing sensory information are their cap-
abilities of adapting instructed environments, robustness to
noise, fault tolerance and simultaneous processing. The
work will be fusing force signals and acoustic emission
signals together.
4. Integration of the theoretical models
Continuous production rather than an occasional abnorm-
ality is the major cause leading to tool damage in bulk
material processing such as forging. When occasional diver-
gence of the process, re¯ected from the variation in the
signals of force and acoustic emission, yields defective
products and exerts negative impacts on the tool, the tool
has the capacity to deal with a certain number of these
abnormalities. The history of the tool being used is the main
concern for the theoretical model to include the effect of
each part production on the remaining tool life.
The Robinson's life fraction rule is used in the ANN
model to take the historical information into the account.
The Robinson's life fraction rule [12] adds life consumption
values to produce a cumulative fraction of life consumed
over some designated period. The life consumed for a
sequence of modes of operation, which is expected to make
up some operational strategy, is
X tN X
LN ˆ aP Li (1)
j i Dt i
The total life consumed at a location or period is made up of j
increments of life consumption, each of which weighted by a
factor which lies between 0 and 1. The total life consump-
tion, LN, occurs over a duration of tN to produce part N, lies
between 0 and 1. If LN is greater than 1, then the tool will
have failed before tN is reached, which means that not only
the part N will not be successfully made but also the tool
cannot be used to produce any part of acceptable quality. The
contribution made by each increment is a life consumption
469
rate
P which is the ratio of proportion of the life consumed,
i Li , over the period during which a part is produced and
indexed as j. The period is indicated by Dt.
The Robinson's life fraction rule was initially developed
for life assessment of components at elevated temperatures.
It is modi®ed in this work for the life consumed in every
cycle to have the contribution of current processing condi-
tions involved:
Li ˆ f …smax ; s; W; m; . . .†; W ˆ f …s; e; t; T† (2)
The life consumption during the production of every part is
related to the peak stress, the stress variation history, the
working temperature, time consumed in manufacturing the
part and the frictional conditions. Eq. (2) has a component W
which is the work done during the current cycle i and varies
with stress, strain, time and temperature.
With Eq. (2), contribution of any abnormality to life
consumption will be counted. The equation can be modi®ed
to consider the in¯uence of other parameters on the life
consumption.
5. Conclusions
Application of on-line tool condition monitoring into bulk
metal forming processes has been of importance to industry
to reduce machine down time and improve productivity. An
on-line tool condition monitoring system for forging process
is under development using a multiplayer error-back-pro-
pagation network. Force, acoustic emission signals, process
parameters (tool temperature, stroke rates and surface lubri-
cation condition of in-feed material) and life consumption
evaluated from a theoretical model are used as inputs of the
neural network model to predict the tool condition, main-
tenance schedule, and tool replacement. The technique can
be applied to other metal forming processes.
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