The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2021) 113:419–433

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-06596-4

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Comparative evaluation of supervised machine learning algorithms

in the prediction of the relative density of 316L stainless steel
fabricated by selective laser melting
Germán Omar Barrionuevo 1 & Jorge Andrés Ramos-Grez 1,2 & Magdalena Walczak 1,2 & Carlos Andrés Betancourt 3

Received: 27 August 2020 / Accepted: 3 January 2021 / Published online: 25 January 2021
# The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd. part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
To find a robust combination of selective laser melting (SLM) process parameters to achieve the highest relative density of 3D
printed parts, predicting the relative density of 316L stainless steel 3D printed parts was studied using a set of machine learning
algorithms. The SLM process brings about the possibility to process metal powders and built complex geometries. However, this
technology’s applicability is limited due to the inherent anisotropy of the layered manufacturing process, which generates
porosity between adjacent layers, accelerating wear of the built parts when in service. To reduce interlayer porosity, the selection
of SLM process parameters has to be properly optimized. The relative density of these manufactured objects is affected by
porosity and is a function of process parameters, rendering it a challenging optimization task to solve. In this work, seven
supervised machine learning regressors (i.e., support vector machine, decision tree, random forest, gradient boosting,
Gaussian process, K-nearest neighbors, multi-layer perceptron) were trained to predict the relative density of 316L stainless
steel samples produced by the SLM process. For this purpose, a total of 112 data sets were assembled from a deep literature
review, and 5-fold cross-validation was applied to assess the regressor error. The accuracy of the predictions was evaluated by
defining an index of merit, i.e., the norm of a vector whose components are the statistical metrics: root mean square error
(RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and the coefficient of determination (R2). From this index of merit, it is established that
the use of gradient boosting regressor shows the highest accuracy, followed by multi-layer perceptron and random forest
regressor.

Keywords Selective laser melting . Stainless steel 316L . Relative density . Machine learning . Regressor

1 Introduction customization technique to a process where final functional

Additive manufacturing (AM), commonly yet mistakenly
known as 3D printing, was initially developed as a rapid
prototyping tool [1]. This technology became popular due to
patents’ expiration and went from being a modeling and
* Jorge Andrés Ramos-Grez
jramos@ing.puc.cl
1 than 100 W, to melt and fuse particular powder regions layer
Department of Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineering, School of
Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña
Mackenna, 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile
2
Research Center for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials
(CIEN-UC), Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile
3
Graduate Institute of Automation Technology, National Taipei
University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
parts can be obtained directly. AM expands design freedom
and offers the possibility to process almost any material, from
polymers, metals, and ceramics to composite materials [35].
Within metal AM, it is possible to distinguish between two
major technologies, one where there is a bed of metallic pow-
der and the content is selectively melted through a heat source
and the second where the material is deposited directly in the
form of either powder or wires [25]. Selective laser melting
(SLM) is a powder bed fusion technology designed to use
high-power lasers, with power consumption typically greater
by layer, using computer-aided design (CAD) data [52]. This
technique makes it possible to build complex geometries, im-
possible to achieve through conventional processes [46].
However, one of the key challenges to make this technology
robust and cost-effective is the heterogeneous microstructure
of the selective laser melted (SLMed) specimens [30]. Since
420
the mechanical properties depend on the microstructure and in
the case of SLM due to the dizzying heating and cooling cycle
produced by the material-laser interaction, mechanisms diffi-
cult to control are generated, such as the extension of the
molten pool, Marangoni convection, unmelted material, pow-
der oxidation, among others [50]. This behavior is repeated
layer by layer, causing a strong anisotropy to arise, mainly due
to the microstructure’s evolution [25]. The grain’s growth
depends primarily on the temperature gradient and the solid-
ification rate [49]. The heat conduction equation that governs
the spatial and temporal distribution of the temperature in the
process is shown below in Eq. (1).
∂T
ρcp ¼ k∇2 T þ Φ ð1Þ
∂t
where ρ is the material density, cp the specific heat, k the
thermal conductivity, and Φ represents the heat source, given
by Eq. (2) [28].
P If the power is low and the speed is high, porosities arise,
Φ ¼ 0:864 α ð2Þ
πr2
where α represents the absorption of laser energy, P the laser
power, and r the radius of the laser focal spot.
More complex heat sources have been developed; Waqar
et al. [44] analyzed the thermal behavior and melted pool
morphology of 316L stainless steel (316L SS) processed by
SLM. They used a 3D volumetric Gaussian heat source given
by Eq. 3:
0 h i1
2 ð x−vt Þ 2
þ y 2  
2αP @ A −jzj
Φ ¼ 2 exp − exp ð3Þ
πr S r2 S P
where S represents the laser penetration depth; x, y, and z are
geometrical components; t is the time; and v is the scanning
speed.
To fabricate parts with better mechanical properties than
conventionally manufactured ones, it is necessary to optimize
the process parameters. Defects are introduced when process
parameter values are not appropriately chosen. The common
defects are classified into three types: porosities, incomplete
fusion holes, and cracks [47]. Several studies show the effects
of the process parameters in the final microstructure, mechan-
ical properties, resistance to corrosion, and wear of objects
manufactured using this technique. Zhang et al. [51] found
that if the laser power is increased, the grain size also in-
creases, while if the scanning speed is increased, the grain size
decreases. According to Lin et al. [26], the grain refinement
improves the mechanical properties of the manufactured
pieces. To show this, they evaluated the effects of changing
the scanning speed on the relative density of manufactured
objects and their resistance to pitting corrosion. Salman et al.
[37] recommended rotating the scan angle 79° after each coat
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
to reduce pore formation during the SLM process. Regarding
the manufacturing strategy, there is no consensus so far on
which technique delivers the best results. Zhang et al. [51]
examined the effects of changing the scanning angle from 0
to 90° with successive increments of 15°; according to their
results, the maximum relative density is obtained at 30° with a
unidirectional scanning pattern. Gupta et al. [17] evaluated the
impact of layer rotation at different angles 0, 45, and 90°. At
90°, the samples present a smaller grain size, higher micro-
hardness, and higher relative density. In general, four types of
scanning strategies can be distinguished: unidirectional, zig-
zag, crosshatching, and chessboard. However, the scanning
strategy varies depending on the part’s geometry to be
manufactured, so its effects on the relative density have not
been studied in depth yet.
According to Bourell et al. [4], the parameters that define
the quality of a material processed by SLM are the laser power
(P) and the scanning speed (v). The ratio between laser power
and speed is named line energy (LE); this is shown in Eq. (4).
which are associated with powder particles that did not melt.
On the other hand, if high-power values and low speeds are
applied, it leads to overheating the molten pool and, conse-
quently, the material’s evaporation. Additionally, if high laser
power and high speed are applied, the balling effect is gener-
ated, interrupting the flow continuity and causing a thermal
imbalance [46]. Khanna et al. [20] present a linear relationship
between density and energy density (ED) of Invar-36 alloy
during selective laser sintering, where the higher the ED, the
higher the density and lower surface roughness.
LE ¼ ð4Þ
v
To avoid unwanted phenomena such as unmelted material
and spatter from molten material, a processing window has
been defined as a function of the laser energy density (i.e.,
laser fluence), given by Eq. (5); this is a measure of the energy
supplied per unit of volume:
P
ED ¼ ð5Þ
vlh
where ED is the energy density (J mm−3), P is the laser power
(W), h is the hatch distance (mm), v is the scanning speed
(mm s−1), and l is the layer thickness (mm).
The rest of this article is organized as follows. An overview
of related works is presented in the next section, focused on
machine learning (ML) applied to AM. Then, the methodolo-
gy is explained in Section 3, detailing data processing and ML
algorithms employed. In Section 4, the accuracy of the pre-
dictions is reported as well as some recommendations to ob-
tain a robust system for the relative density prediction. Finally,
the main conclusions are presented in Section 5.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
2 Related works
Due to the need to optimize manufacturing processes and
thanks to increased computational power, machine learning
algorithms have been recently applied to materials processing.
ML algorithms use computational methods to learn informa-
tion directly from the data without relying on a predetermined
equation or model [9]. Supervised ML algorithms map a func-
tion from known input-output pairs and are mainly used for
classification and regression tasks [15]. Regression is
employed to estimate the relationships between a dependent
variable and one or more independent variables [21]. Thus, it
is an appropriate mathematical tool to predict the relative den-
sity of samples processed by AM. The types of ML regressors
include support vector machine regression (SVR), decision
tree regression (DTR), random forest regression (RFR),
Gaussian process regression (GPR), among others. Other
ML applications include artificial neural networks (ANN),
which have the ability to recognize complex patterns, classify
data, and make predictions [7]. On the other hand, fuzzy logic
(FL) is used when the complexity of the processes is high; for
instance, they are appropriate for non-linear processes in
which mathematical models are not available [40]. An adap-
tive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is a hybrid algo-
rithm that integrates the ANN and FL principles and can cap-
ture the benefits of both in a single framework [29].
Supervised ML algorithms can be employed to solve opti-
mization problems [41], where the goal is to find a mapping
function that minimizes the loss function shown in Eq. (6). The
loss function is a method of evaluating how well the developed
algorithm models the dataset, and it is calculated as the sum of
errors made for each example in training or validation sets [34].
In that sense, minimizing the loss function optimizes the ML
algorithm. In regression problems, the square of the Euclidean
distance between the predictions and the true values is one of
the most employed loss functions [45].
1 N  i  i 
min ∑ L y ; f x ;θ ð6Þ
θ N i¼1
where L is the loss function, f is the function to be learned, θ is
the parameter of the mapping function, xi is the feature vector of
the ith samples, yi is the target value, and N is the number of
training samples.
ML accuracy is directly related to the error measurement;
low accuracy means a considerable difference between the
prediction and the target value. Some of the most employed
metrics to evaluate the accuracy of regression models are root
mean squared error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and
the coefficient of determination (R2) [19]. For MAE and
RMSE, lower values mean a better model. R2 ranges from
‑ ∞ to 1; the better model, the higher the R2. To assess ML
accuracy, the k-fold cross-validation (CV) is employed; this
421
method provides an effective way to test the algorithm’s abil-
ity to predict new data and face common problems as
underfitting or overfitting. In this validation technique, k rep-
resents the number of parts in which the data is divided into; k-
1 folds are used for training, and the remaining fold is used for
testing the model [2]. CV is employed to compare and select a
model for a given predictive modeling problem because it is
simple to implement, easy to understand, and results in the
predictions having low biases in general.
In the review by Casalino [7], the laser technologies for
material processing are categorized into union process, ma-
chining, surface treatment, and AM processes. He further il-
lustrates the applicability of different cases of computational
intelligence: ANN, neuro-fuzzy inference system, meta-
heuristic methods, and computational intelligence, to solve
problems regarding laser material processing issues in general.
However, there are few publications about ML applied to AM.
Kusano et al. [22] developed a predictive model of mechanical
properties during the uniaxial tensile test by applying multiple
linear regression and random forest algorithms in a Ti-6Al-4V
SLMed process. Garg et al. [13] applied multi-genetic algo-
rithms to feed an ANN and predicted the roughness and wav-
iness of the surface of an aluminum part produced by SLM.
Caggiano et al. [6] employed deep convolutional neural net-
works for on-line detection of defects during SLM in a pre-
alloyed Inconel 718 powder. Garg et al. [14] compared differ-
ent supervised ML algorithms: SVR and ANFIS versus a hy-
brid algorithm that incorporates linear regression, DTR, and
RFR to predict compressive strength in the process of fused
deposition modeling (FDM); the hybrid system presented
greater precision in the predictions than SVR and ANFIS.
Bayraktar et al. [3] applied ANN to predict the tensile strength
of polylactic acid manufactured by FDM. The input layer was
formed by the melting temperature, layer thickness, and the
printing angle. The results were contrasted with analysis of
variance (ANOVA), and various other statistical metrics were
used to verify the precision of the predictions. Jianjing et al.
[48] developed a prediction model for tensile strength in FDM
based on deep learning (DL); the model considers the mate-
rial’s properties, process parameters (extruder temperature,
print speed, and layer height), and sensor signals (temperature
and vibration) to feed the neural network. The precision
achieved was higher compared to ML algorithms like SVR
and RF. Baturynska and Martinsen [2] compared multi-layer
perceptron (MLP), gradient boosting regressor (GBR), DTR,
SVR, and linear regression to predict width, thickness, and
length in laser-sintered polyamide specimens. Linear regres-
sion shows higher accuracy, followed by MLP and GBR,
respectively. Mycroft et al. [30] analyzed the impact of the
geometry in the printability of the metal AM process applying
SVM, RFR, k-nearest neighbor (KNN), and Bayesian regres-
sion. They addressed new research lines, suggesting measur-
ing the density would better predict the material’s printability.
422
More recently, Kusiak [23] analyzed convolutional and gen-
erative adversarial neural networks in manufacturing. He con-
cluded that ML algorithms bring new opportunities for the
optimization of advanced manufacturing systems.
In this work, the accuracy of seven machine learning algo-
rithms for predicting the relative density in 316L SS speci-
mens manufactured by SLM is evaluated by applying an in-
dex of merit introduced in the present work. The data collec-
tion was carried out based on an extensive bibliographic re-
view, where the search focused on articles that analyzed the
relative density and mechanical and microstructural properties
of 316L SS parts processed by SLM. A total of 112 data sets
were consolidated and then divided into training, validation,
and testing sets as 70, 15, and 15%. To estimate how accurate
are the implemented models, 5-fold CV was employed with a
total of 95 datasets. Then, a comparison of each ML prediction
accuracy was compared and discussed.
3 Methodology
Figure 1 illustrates the process followed to predict the relative
density of 316L samples manufactured by SLM. In the first
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the process followed to assess the ML algorithm for the prediction of the relative density of 316L samples processed by
SLM
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
state, an in-depth literature review was executed, the search
focused on specific keywords (SLM, relative density, and
316L stainless steel), and then the database was consolidated
with a total of 112 datasets. Data were split for training and
testing processes in the second stage, and cross-validation was
applied to validate the model accuracy. Finally, the ML algo-
rithm was tested, and the best model was identified according
to the index of merit, which is described in Section 3.3.
3.1 Database processing
The data was collected from 13 references (Table 1) of 316L
SS parts processed by SLM. First, the data were randomized
and then split into training (70%), validation (15%), and test-
ing (15%) parts. The input parameters were laser power, scan-
ning speed, layer thickness, hatch spacing, and powder size,
with data ranges according to Table 2. The output variable is
the relative density, where the minimum value, mean, and
maximum value are 91.20, 97.71, and 99.90%, respectively
(Fig. 2). Before initiating the training process, the data were
scaled using zero mean and unit variance.
The scatter matrix (Fig. 2) helps us find patterns visually
and relationships between the process parameters and the
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433 423

Table 1 Datasets employed for training and testing procedure

Dataset number Reference Study Machine brand/model Mean relative

density (%)

22 [18] Study the effect of process parameters on microstructure EP-M100T 98.77

and mechanical properties.
20 [12] Optimization of the relative density, and surface roughness. FS271M 98.52
16 [24] Study the effect of energy density on densification, microstructure, SLM 125 96.00
and mechanical properties.
10 [43] Investigation of effects of process parameters on microstructure SLM 280HL 98.59
and hardness.
9 [33] Improve surface quality and relative density. RENISHAW AM 400 98.62
7 [51] Effects of placement orientation and scanning angle on BLT S200 95.61
mechanical properties.
5 [26] Effect of microstructural differences along building direction Self-developed 500 W 96.82
on corrosion behavior.
5 [36] Influence of the manufacturing process on the microstructure REALIZER SLM 100 96.50
and material properties.
4 [27] Effects of hot isostatic pressing treatment on relative density. MYSINT100 96.84
4 [37] Impact of the scanning strategy on mechanical behavior. SLM 250 HL 99.05
4 [42] Sliding wear characteristics and corrosion behavior. RENISHAW 125 96.40
3 [10] Effect of powder feedstock on microstructure and AFS-M120 97.38
mechanical properties.
3 [32] Influence of energy density on porosity. – 97.97

relative density; furthermore, it is possible to observe histo-
grams throughout the diagonal, allowing us to observe the
samples’ trends within the spectrum of possible values. It is
possible to identify a skewed right pattern for laser power and
scanning speed; for layer thickness, there is a multimodal
pattern; hatch spacing shows the symmetric multimodal dis-
tribution, a truncated pattern for powder size, and a skewed
left pattern for relative density around 98%, denoting that
SLM is a near-net-shape manufacturing process. Since the
processing parameters do not show an apparent relationship
between the latter and the relative density, ML algorithms’
application could find a correlation between them to obtain a
suitable model for their prediction.
3.2 Machine learning algorithms
The ML algorithms employed to assess the relative density
were executed using Scikit-learn (S-l) and TensorFlow (TF)
Table 2 Inputs for the training process
Parameters Symbol Min Range mean
in Google Colaboratory (Colab) environment [31]. S-l and TF
are popular ML libraries, which are simple to implement and
efficient in terms of computational power [5]. The algorithms
employed are detailed below. For every algorithm, the
hyperparameters were optimized in order to increase accuracy.
3.2.1 Support vector regression
Support vector regression (SVR) uses a subset of training points
in the decision function to maximize the minimum distance from
the hyperplane to the adjacent sample point [39]. SVR is effec-
tive in facing overfitting whenever the appropriate kernel func-
tion (KF) is employed. The KF is applied to each instance in the
dataset to map the original non-linear observations into a higher-
dimensional space in which they become separable. SVR’s goal
is to search for a fitting function f(x) = ⟨w, x⟩ + b, which has a
deviation less than a small value ε from the target (yi) acquired
for the relating training data set (xi). The employed kernel func-
tion was a radial basis function (RBF) with a margin of tolerance
ε = 0.01.
3.2.2 Decision tree regression
Max

Laser power (W) P 70 152.14 300 The decision tree regression (DTR) goal is to create a model
Scanning speed (mm/s) V 18.75 702.05 2000 that predicts the value of a target variable by learning simple
Layer thickness (mm) L 0.02 0.06 0.46 decision rules inferred from the data features. This regression
Hatch spacing (mm) H 0.02 0.09 0.15 mechanism works by breaking down a dataset into smaller
Particle size (mm) PS 0.016 0.034 0.048 sub-datasets, and subsequently, a related decision tree is de-
veloped incrementally [15]. Finally, a tree having decision
424
Fig. 2 Scatter matrix to show a possible correlation between process parameters and relative density
nodes and leaf nodes is obtained. The parameter that deter-
mines the accuracy and time employed to find the optimal
prediction is the depth. In this work, a maximum depth of
eight was occupied.
3.2.3 Random forest regression
Random forest regression (RFR) is an ensemble method that
operates by training several decision trees and returning the
class that obtained the best results overall the ensemble trees
[39]. RFR uses averaging to improve the predictive accuracy
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
and control overfitting. The selected number of trees in the
forest was 100, with a depth of 20 each.
3.2.4 Gradient boosting regressor
Gradient boosting regressor (GBR) is another class of ensem-
ble boosting methods, which predicts the desired outcome
based on a forward stage-wise fashion; it allows the optimiza-
tion of arbitrary differentiable loss functions [2]. The opti-
mized hyperparameters were least squares for the loss func-
tion, learning rate equal to 0.001, and maximum iteration
number of 2000.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
3.2.5 Gaussian process regression
Gaussian process regression (GPR) is a stochastic method
based on statistical learning and Bayesian theory that mea-
sures the similarity between points using a kernel function
(KF) to predict the value for an unseen point from the training
data [11]. The KF employed was RBF, with a noise level α =
0.001 added to the kernel matrix’s diagonal during fitting, and
ten optimizers.
3.2.6 K-nearest neighbor
K-nearest neighbor (KNN) is employed in cases where feature
vectors are continuous; the objective is to find a predefined
number of training samples close in the distance to the new
Fig. 3 Contour plot of relative
density as a function of a laser
power and scanning speed and b
layer thickness and hatching
spacing
425
point and predict the label from the latter. In this work, the
number of neighbors selected was three.
3.2.7 Multi-layer perceptron
Multi-layer perceptron (MLP), also called deep feedforward
networks or deep neural networks, are is quintessential deep
learning model based on the perceptron as an operational unit
trained using backpropagation; therefore, it uses the square
error as a loss function, and the output is a set of continuous
values. Deep neural networks define a mapping y = f(x; θ) and
learn the value of the parameters θ that result in the best func-
tion approximation [16]. The employed hyperparameters were
a depth of five hidden layers, ten units per each hidden layer,
rectified linear unit function (RELU) as activation function,
426 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433

Table 3 Assessing the accuracy of ML algorithms in CV and testing procedures

CV Testing

R2 RMSE MAE IM R2 RMSE MAE IM

SVR 0.2369 0.7154 0.5149 1.1969 0.2529 0.4319 0.7566 1.0192

DTR 0.3059 0.6855 0.4767 1.1202 0.4193 0.3156 0.4984 0.8365
RFR 0.3853 0.6281 0.4711 1.0557 0.5198 0.1897 0.4443 0.6851
GBR 0.3918 0.6131 0.5046 1.0675 0.5070 0.2093 0.4652 0.7161
GPR 0.3403 0.6339 0.4815 1.0774 0.4423 0.2779 0.4937 0.8076
KNN 0.1554 0.7632 0.5682 1.2952 0.3225 0.3764 0.5216 0.9428
MLP 0.5908 0.1674 0.3813 0.5838 0.4795 0.2605 0.4881 0.7596

and 3000 epochs. In order to increase the accuracy and reduce
bias on the test data, L2 regularization was applied, with a
penalty parameter λ = 0.001 [38].
3.3 Index of merit for the evaluation of the precision
of machine learning algorithms
The IM represents the global accuracy of the validation process
and then is compared with the average IM of the testing process
calculated ten times. The testing data set was isolated and was
not used in the CV procedure. Finally, all data sets were
employed to assess the global model’s accuracy.

To assess the prediction performance of every algorithm, the

4 Results and discussion
norm of a vector having as components the following three
statistical metrics was employed: the coefficient of determina-
In Fig. 3, it is possible to observe the processing window in red,
tion (R2), which explains how well the model replicates the
where the maximum relative density is obtained. Through Fig. 3a,
observed results; the root mean square error (RMSE), which
a recommended zone for the scanning speed falls in the range of
represents the sample standard deviation of the differences
500 to 1500 (mm/s), and laser power is recommended to be
between predicted values and expected values; and the mean
greater than 180 W; at lower powers, around 100 W, it is recom-
absolute error (MAE), representing the accuracy of the predic-
mended to use a scanning speed of around 800 mm/s. On the
tions. The R2, RMSE, and MAE are computed using Eqs.
other hand, Fig. 3b shows a higher relative density while layer
(7)–(9), where yi is the true value, byi is the prediction, yi is
thickness increases and hatch spacing decreases.
the mean, and N is the total number of samples. This index of
The model’s evaluation was developed by applying the 5-
merit (IM), shown in Eq. (10), seeks to unify the three statis-
fold CV to predict new data and avoid overfitting (Table 3). A
tical metrics into one and propose a robust estimator. As the
successful ML algorithm should have a small training error and
magnitude of the index approaches zero, the maximum
make the gap between training and test error as small as possible
predicting accuracy is obtained, while the further apart from
(Fig. 4). With a total of 3000 epochs, the training error achieves
zero, the lower the predicting accuracy achieved.
 2
∑Ni yi −byi
R2 ¼ 1−  2 ð7Þ
∑Ni yi −yi
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2ffi
1 N
RMSE ¼ ∑ y −by ð8Þ
N i i i

1
MAE ¼ ∑Ni yi −byi ð9Þ
N

qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2
IM ¼ 1−R2 þ MSE þ ðMAE Þ2 ð10Þ

The cross-validation process was repeated ten times for each Fig. 4 Loss function evaluation during training and testing evaluation in
model, and then the average was taken as accuracy estimators. MLP
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433 427

Table 4 Computational a mean squared error value less than 0.253, while for the test set,
time ML algorithm Time (s)
the error gets around 0.386 in the MLP algorithm.
SVR 0.017 MLP achieved the highest R2 for the CV procedure and the
DTR 0.005 lowest RMSE and MAE, respectively. These results were cor-
RFR 0.120 roborated with the index of merit, which reports the lowest IM
GBR 0.542 (0.5838), followed by RFR and GBR with an IM equal to
GPR 0.428 1.0557 and 1.0675, respectively. The algorithm that shows
KNN 0.010 the worst performance was KNN, with the lowest R2 and
MLP 96.088 highest RMSE and MAE, consequently obtaining the largest
IM (1.2952). However, during testing, the models that best

Fig. 5 Evaluation of each ML

algorithm during training and IM
value

IM=0.4673 IM=0.1331

IM=0.2463 IM=0.3528

IM=0.0842 IM=0.5791

IM=0.5061
428 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433

matched the predictions with the true values of the relative
density were RFR and GBR, with an IM of 0.6851 and
0.7161, respectively. The models that better adjusted the pre-
dictions (>R2) with the relative density’s true values were
RFR and GBR again. Concerning the accuracy of the predic-
tions, the algorithm that performed best at predicting the rela-
tive density of the 316L SS pieces processed by SLM is the
RFR model, followed by GBR and MLP. All the ML algo-
rithms show similar metrics during CV and testing; thus,
showing their consistency, which means that overfitting was
not present during the experiments. Considering the exposed
results, RFR shows better prediction performance in testing,
followed by GBR and MLP.
The no free lunch theorem states that no machine learning
algorithm is universally better than any other [16]. However,
the metrics to evaluate the accuracy play a significant role in
determining which algorithm is suitable depending on the task
to be executed. Chai and Draxler [8] compared RMSE versus
MAE and determined that RMSE is appropriated to be used
when the error distribution is expected to be Gaussian and

Fig. 6 Evaluation of each ML

algorithm during testing and IM
value

IM=0.5867 IM=0.9118

IM=0.6294 IM=0.6089

IM=0.8441 IM=0.7674

IM=0.5797
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433 429

Table 5 Metrics employed to assess the global accuracy of the (processor i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz, 12 Gb of RAM) and in the
algorithms employed to predict the true relative density in the SLM
same environment (Colab); the results are presented in
process
Table 4.
R2 RMSE MAE IM Figures 5 and 6 show a comparative evaluation of all su-
pervised ML algorithms in the prediction of the relative den-
SVR 0.6066 0.1425 0.4112 0.5867
sity in 316L SS pieces manufactured by SLM for both training
DTR 0.3767 0.3576 0.5613 0.9118
and testing, respectively, comparing target values on the hor-
RFR 0.5938 0.1519 0.4434 0.6203
izontal axis and the predicted values on the vertical axis. The
GBR 0.6296 0.1263 0.4665 0.6089
IM explains how accurate the models are; the lower the IM,
GPR 0.4039 0.3271 0.5002 0.8441
the more accurate the model. For the training process, GPR
KNN 0.4851 0.2441 0.5140 0.7674
achieves the lowest IM (0.0842), followed by DTR and RFR.
MLP 0.6056 0.1432 0.3896 0.5797 For the test dataset, MLP shows the highest accuracy (IM =
0.5797), followed by SVR and GBR with IM equal to 0.5867
and 0.6089, respectively.
recommended a combination of metrics to assess general To provide a global evaluation of all the algorithms
model performance. The proposed IM appears as a robust employed in this work, the entire dataset was used for
estimator since it integrates the accuracy and variability into predicting the true relative density prediction of the SLMed
one value. Jianjing Zhang et al. (2019) employed RMSE and samples. A total of 87 sets of data were employed for training
R2 to assess the accuracy of the predicted tensile strength in and 25 for the testing. Table 5 shows the obtained metrics for
FDM. Baturynska and Martinsen [2] employed R2, MAE, and accuracy evaluation. The algorithm which shows the highest
RMSE as estimators to compare MLP, DTR, GBR, and SVR R2 is GBR, followed by MLP and SVR. The model that shows
to assess the accuracy of geometry deviations in AM. the lowest RMSE is GB; MLP shows the lowest MAE,
Nevertheless, due to the dataset variability, it is difficult to followed by SVR. With these results, the algorithm that shows
establish which is the best algorithm for width, thickness, the lowest IM was MLP, followed by SVR, GBR, and RFR.
and length prediction. The IM makes the selection of which Therefore, the recommended ML algorithms for predicting
model to choose for the relative density prediction easier the relative density on samples fabricated by SLM are the
since, through a single metric, it is established which algo- ensemble models GBR and RFR. Furthermore, MLP shows
rithm shows greater precision. Besides, Occam’s razor (c. good accuracy presenting the lowest IM (0.5797); however,
1287–1347) states that “among competing hypotheses that MLP shows the highest time computing.
explain known observations equally well, we should choose Figure 7 illustrates the range of the predicted relative den-
the simplest one” [16]. For that reason, we have analyzed the sity. By comparing the true values of the relative density and
computational time for each algorithm in order to determine the ML algorithms’ results, it is possible to determine that
which one consumes more resources. It should be noted that GBR is the model that best fit the predictions. The true mean
all the ML algorithms were run on the same computer value for the RD on the testing process was 97.76% and

Fig. 7 Boxplot of predictions

spread during testing
430
Fig. 8 Scatter plot for comparing
supervised ML algorithms in
predicting the true relative
density. a All the algorithms. b
Algorithms with the lowest IM
98.4% for the median, while the median RD predicted for all
the ML algorithms was around 98.04 ± 0.28%.
Figure 8 shows the behavior of all the employed ML algo-
rithms, where Fig. 8a indicates the prediction performance
comparison between all the ML algorithms employed, and
the scatter plots of the most accurate algorithms (MLP,
GBR, RFR) are shown in Fig. 8b.
5 Conclusions
Seven machine learning algorithms have been thoroughly
employed for predicting the relative density of 316L stainless
steel parts processed by SLM and comprehensively analyzed
and compared; the following conclusions are drawn:
1. The algorithms work well for predictions (near-net-shape)
where there is a relative density greater than 97%; this
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
makes sense since the average relative density of the
dataset is over this value.
2. A process window to obtain parts with high density has
been established. The following ranges are recommended:
laser power greater than 180 W, scanning speed between
600 and 800 mm/s, layer thickness between 0.1 and
0.4 mm, and hatch spacing around 0.03 mm. The latter
for a powder diameter size varying between 16 and 48 μm
and machine brands: SLM solutions (125, 250, and
280HL), Renishaw (AM 125, and 400), ReaLizer SLM
100, SISMA MySint 100, SHINING 3D EP-M100, AFS-
M120, Xi’an BLT S200, and FARSOON FS271M.
3. An Index of Merit has been built from the norm of a
vector having as components the three statistical metrics:
R2, RMSE, and MAPE. The lower the norm value, the
more accurate the algorithm predicts the relative density.
4. The algorithm that better represents the relative density
prediction spread is gradient boosting regressor (GBR).
This model achieves high replicability, the lowest
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2021) 113:419–433
standard deviation, and excellent accuracy in the predic-
tions. For these reasons, GBR is the algorithm recom-
mended for the prediction of relative density in samples
of 316L stainless steel processed by selective laser melt-
ing using the machine brands listed in Table 1 and a pow-
der diameter size ranging from 16 to 48 μm.
5. Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) is the second-best algo-
rithm to predict the relative density SLMed accurately. It
shows good accuracy during the testing process and pre-
sents the lowest MAE; however, significantly more com-
puting time is required for its processing.
6. The ensemble method random forest regressor (RFR)
shows accurate metrics during cross-validation and test-
ing; it is the third ML algorithm recommended for the
relative density prediction in SLM fabrication.
7. Finally, DTR, KNN, and GPR achieve the worst metrics,
and therefore, we do not recommend them to predict the
relative density of 316L stainless steel fabricated using the
above listed selective laser melting machines.
Acknowledgments The main and corresponding author would like to
acknowledge SENESCYT grant no. ARSEQ-BEC-000329-2017, the
Research Center for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (CIEN-
UC) and ANID FONDECYT grant no. 1201068 project for making this
publication possible.
Authors’ contributions Germán Omar Barrionuevo: paper original idea,
literature review and data collection, selection and implementation of
machine learning algorithms, data processing, plot generation, and man-
uscript writing and funding.
Jorge Andrés Ramos Grez: paper original conceptualization, close
supervision and guidance during research process, index of merit formu-
lation, critical advice, and manuscript proofread and funding.
Magdalena Walczak: supervision and guidance, critical advice and
manuscript proofread, and valuable comments.
Carlos Andrés Betancourt: critical advice and manuscript proofread
and valuable comments.
Funding This study is financially supported by the SENESCYT grant no.
ARSEQ-BEC-000329-2017 and ANID FONDECYT grant no. 1201068
project.
Data availability Source files are available in GitHub (https://github.com/
GermanOmar/SLM-ML).
Compliance with ethical standards
Ethical approval Not applicable.
Consent to participate All the authors involved have agreed to partici-
pate in this submitted article.
Consent to publish All the authors involved in this manuscript give full
consent for publication of this submitted article.
Competing interests The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
431
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