Marine Structures 86 (2022) 103290

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Marine Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marstruc

Performance of predictive models to determine weld bead shape

parameters for shielded gas metal arc welded T-joints
R. Pradhan a ,∗, A.P. Joshi a , M.R. Sunny b , A. Sarkar a
a Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India
b Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords:
Artificial neural network (ANN)
Gas metal arc welding (GMAW)
Multiple linear regression (MLR)
SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP)
Heat source parameters
Bead geometry
Assessing weld bead shape is essential for the quality control of a welded joint. This work
presents an attempt to predict the weld bead shape parameters of shielded Gas Metal Arc Welded
(GMAW) fillet joints through the application of statistical design techniques and artificial neural
network. Extensive tests were performed on low carbon mild steel plates ranging in thickness
from 3 mm to 10 mm. Welding voltage, welding current, and moving heat source speed
were considered as the welding parameters. To develop empirical equation for defining bead
geometry parameters of GMAW, multiple linear regression model (MLR) was formulated. Also,
an artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed and individual feature importance
was studied using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). The results show that the ANN-based
approach performs better in predictability and error assessment. The predictive model has been
used to study the temperature profile of a joint numerically, and an excellent match has been
noticed when compared with experimental measurement. This study shows the usefulness of
the predictive tools to aid numerical analysis of welding.

1. Introduction

GMAW is a commonly practiced metal joining process used predominantly in the marine construction industries. High
temperature beyond melting point is generated when an electric arc is established between a metal electrode and the base metal.
Shielding gas (Ar, He, CO2 , etc.) is used to protect weld pool from the contaminants in the atmosphere. It is widely used in heavy
industries due to its ease of automation for fabrication of large stiffened plates [1]. Weld induced distortion and residual stresses are
the main concerns for welding in large thin plates. As a result, numerical simulations are frequently used to assess the likely behavior
during the manufacturing of stiffened panels. Recently, various researchers have developed effective thermal–elastic–plastic finite
element model for proper evaluation of distortion and residual stress generated during welding [2–4]. The calculation of temperature
distribution is critical in assessing the weld induced distortion and residual stresses. The size of the weld bead in the computational
domain plays an important role in the accuracy of the numerical model and subsequently on the quality of the welded product.
In this regard, various researchers have attempted to establish input–output correlations of welding parameters and shape of the
weld bead for different types of welding processes through analysis and processing of experimental data statistically [5–9]. Methods
like, linear regression, multiple linear regression, non-linear regression, response surface methodology, Taguchi method etc. are
commonly used in practice. Tarng and Yang [10] used Taguchi method to establish an optimized relation for weld bead geometry
in Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). In a similar approach, Kim et al. [11] created a model of process parameters of back-bead
width in GMAW in mild steel. An extensive comparison between multiple linear regression (MLR) and neural network methods was

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: rururaj.mech@gmail.com (R. Pradhan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marstruc.2022.103290
Received 11 March 2022; Received in revised form 21 July 2022; Accepted 8 August 2022
Available online 20 August 2022
0951-8339/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
R. Pradhan et al. Marine Structures 86 (2022) 103290

Fig. 1. Input-response flow diagram of GMAW.

Fig. 2. Weld bead shape parameters.

also carried out. Ganjigatti et al. [12] designed a full factorial correlation for the metal inert gas welding parameters and weld-bead
geometry on mild steel plates. Performance of linear as well as nonlinear models were compared.
ANN have proven to be useful in solving a variety of engineering challenges. Nagesh and Datta [13] reported that neural networks
are effective tools for predicting bead geometry in tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding process. Sathiya et al. [14] also developed an
ANN model to establish the relationship between the welding process parameters and the weld bead geometry in laser welding.
Similar approach was carried by Campbell et al. [15] and Sarkar et al. [16] on GMAW using alternating shielding gasses. Recently,
Singh et al. [17] conducted experiments and used ANN with forward feed back propagation algorithm for estimation of width of
heat affected zone in a tempered steel plate. Venkata Rao et al. [18] used ANN method to predict the weld bead geometry for bead
on plate type robotic GMA welding.
Based on the literature review, it is observed that various works related to bead geometry modeling for butt welding using GMAW
are reported. In contrast, limited number of literature is available that particularly focuses on fillet weld. It is well known that bead
geometry modeling in fillet joint is highly critical in numerical model of the welding phenomenon [19,20]. Hence it is essential that
a systematic study is proposed to evaluate the bead shape parameters for fillet welding. In the current article, a comparative analysis
is carried out between MLR and ANN model for fillet weld bead geometry. Predicted bead geometry has been incorporated in a
numerical model and temperature profiles at designated locations are obtained. These have been compared with measured profiles
from an experiment and excellent match has been noticed.

2. Predictive models and data collection

The objective of the current work is to predict the input–output relationships of a shielded GMAW process as shown in Fig. 1.
The welding process parameters and response variables are designated as inputs and outputs for the process. Two approaches are
considered for this work, namely (a) MLR, where each response will have a single set of relation of the input variable and (b) ANN,
using the same set of data.
The chosen input parameters for welding in this work are: plate thickness (T), welding current (I), arc voltage (V) and welding
speed (S). Similarly, the output responses are: bead width (W), depth of penetration (P), throat length (TH) and leg length (L). In
this case it is assumed that the leg height and leg length to be same. The schematic of the bead shape parameters is shown in Fig. 2.
It is assumed that the weld pool produced by the welding arc is the principal source of heat.
In the present study, low carbon mild steel (0.16% C) plates of thickness 3 mm, 4 mm, 5 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm and 10 mm were
fillet welded using a semiautomatic GMAW machine. Fig. 3 shows the semi-automatic setup of the welding station. Single pass
welding was carried out on both side of the stiffener using constant voltage electrode positive polarity with flux cored wire of
diameter 1.2 mm. The diameter of the feed wire and wire feed rate kept constant throughout the experiments. The shielding gas

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Fig. 3. The welding set up.

Fig. 4. Weld deposit showing response parameters.

used in GMAW was 100% CO2 . The gas flow rate was 1.2 lpm and the gas preheat temperature was 80 ◦ C. Weld bead samples for
macroscopic inspection are cut from the middle of the plate to nullify the end effects. The transverse surface of the cut samples
then mirror finished and subsequently etched with 2% Nital solution for macroscopic observations (Fig. 4). In the fillet welding
experiments, the welding parameters and inspected bead geometry parameters are recorded and presented in Tables 1 and 2. Due
to the requirement of train-test split of experimental data, the total data are represented in two different tables (refer Section 3).

3. Pre-processing of collected data

To examine the effects of input variables on the bead geometry parameters of GMAW process, the experimental data are tabulated.
Pre-processing of data is imperative in case of any predictive data model like MLR and ANN. This provides utility functions and
transformer classes to change raw vectors into more usable predictors. For that purpose, an environment for Python script is
developed and a well-known machine learning package ‘‘scikit-learn’’ added for predictive data analysis (for MLR and preprocessing
of ANN).
This module contains extensive machine learning algorithms that is integrated to Python [21]. To avoid the risk of data leakage,
the entire data set is randomly split into train and test data sets (90:10) using the ‘‘train-test split’’ from the sklearn library [21].
The Tables 1 and 2 represents the training and testing data respectively. The test set is used only for the evaluation of the models.
The entire data set is scaled between 0 to 1 using ‘‘MinMaxScaler’’ library of ‘‘sklearn’’ preprocessing module. The primary purpose
of scaling is to increase the robustness of the model by taking care of small standard deviations of features and preserving zero
entries in sparse data. The transformation is shown as:
(𝑋 − 𝑋min )
𝑋𝑠𝑡𝑑 = ( ) (1)
𝑋max − 𝑋min

𝑋𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑑 = 𝑋𝑠𝑡𝑑 ∗ (𝑀𝐴𝑋 − 𝑀𝐼𝑁) + 𝑀𝐼𝑁 (2)

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Table 1
Experimental data set for training of model.
Number Input Output
Thickness of Welding Arc Welding Width (mm) Depth of Throat Leg
plate (mm) current (A) voltage (V) speed (mm/s) penetration (mm) length (mm) length (mm)
(T) (I) (V) (S) (W) (P) (TH) (L)
1 10 310 28 9.25 4.7 1.8 4.2 4.9
2 3 175 25 7 5 1 4 4.4
3 6 175 18 5 5.6 1.2 4.6 4.3
4 4 125 30 4 4.1 1.6 5 4.5
5 6 275 30 8 5 1.8 4.8 5
6 8 200 34 5 4.4 2.1 4.7 5.2
7 3 250 28 8 5.3 1.5 4.6 4.7
8 4 165 27 5.25 4.8 1.5 4.7 4.5
9 8 250 32 6.75 4.9 1.9 4.5 5
10 3 220 30 4 5.2 1.8 5.4 5.2
11 3 230 30 8 5.2 1.6 4.6 4.6
12 5 300 22 6 7 2 5.2 5.4
13 3 225 30 8 5.2 1.5 4.5 4.6
14 8 200 26 6 5.1 1.5 4.2 4.7
15 4 270 20 4 7 1.8 5.8 5.2
16 8 275 22 9 4.8 1.3 3.8 5
17 6 220 24 9.25 4.5 1.1 3.5 4.5
18 8 190 32 8 5.2 1.5 4 4.2
19 5 190 30 7 5 1.5 4.2 4.5
20 5 150 20 5.5 4.8 1 4 4.2
21 10 175 32 3.25 4 2.2 5 5.3
22 10 225 26 4 5.7 2 4.9 5.2
23 4 200 34 6 4.8 1.8 4.8 4.9
24 5 175 36 6 4.7 1.9 4.8 4.7
25 5 200 34 5 4.5 2.1 5 5.2
26 5 310 28 9.25 4.9 1.8 5 4.8
27 8 175 32 5 4.6 1.9 4.6 4.9
28 4 175 28 5 4.9 1.6 4.8 4.6
29 5 230 26 6 5.5 1.8 4.7 5
30 10 250 32 6.75 4.8 2 4.3 5
31 6 280 25 8 5.4 1.7 4.5 5
32 6 175 32 5 4.6 1.9 4.6 4.9
33 5 310 34 9.25 4.7 1.9 5.6 4.5
34 8 310 28 9.25 4.7 1.8 4.6 4.9
35 3 150 26 5 4.7 1.3 4.8 4.3
36 4 220 22 5 6.2 1.7 5.2 4.8
37 3 200 32 7 5.2 1.6 4.7 4.5
38 8 175 36 6 4.6 2 4.6 4.7
39 6 310 34 9.25 4.6 2 5.4 4.6
40 6 310 28 9.25 4.8 1.9 4.7 4.9
41 5 275 30 8 5.2 1.9 4.9 4.9
42 8 280 35 5 4.4 2.2 4.7 5.8
43 3 250 20 8 5.5 1.1 4.1 5
44 4 150 32 7 5 1.4 4.2 4.2
45 4 141 30 8 5.2 1 3.7 4
46 10 300 20 7 6.4 1.8 4.1 5
47 4 180 30 6 5 1.6 4.6 4.6
48 3 180 25 6 5.1 1.3 4.5 4.5
49 6 150 22 6 4.6 1 3.8 4.3
50 4 150 26 5 4.7 1.4 4.7 4.4
51 5 200 26 6 5.2 1.4 4.5 4.6
52 8 160 25 6 4.7 1.2 4 4.4
53 6 200 26 6 5.2 1.5 4.4 4.7

Where 𝑋𝑠𝑡𝑑 and 𝑋𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑑 are the normalized and scaled value corresponding to actual value 𝑋. 𝑋𝑚𝑎𝑥 and 𝑋𝑚𝑖𝑛 are the maximum and
minimum value in the corresponding feature set. 𝑀𝐼𝑁 and 𝑀𝐴𝑋 are the feature range to be scaled (in this case 𝑀𝐼𝑁= 0 and
𝑀𝐴𝑋= 1).

In order to train the model in a robust manner, the ‘‘Repeated K-fold’’ cross validation technique is used for model training.
We split the training data into ten folds and use each fold as a validation data while the model is trained. Since ‘‘Repeated K-fold’’
technique is employed this splitting process is repeated five times.

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Table 2
Experimental data set for testing of model.
Number Input Output
Thickness of Welding Arc Welding Width (mm) Depth of Throat Leg
plate (mm) current (A) voltage (V) speed (mm/s) penetration (mm) length (mm) length (L)
(T) (I) (V) (S) (W) (P) (TH) (L)
1 10 280 28 6 5.5 2.2 4.5 5.2
2 10 200 34 5 4.3 2.1 4.5 5.2
3 3 125 30 4 4.2 1.6 5.2 4.5
4 6 300 30 7 5.2 2.1 5 5.3
5 3 275 26 9.25 5 1.4 4.5 4.8
6 6 250 32 6.75 5 2 4.7 5
7 4 310 28 9.25 4.9 1.7 5.2 4.8
8 4 250 24 6.75 5.78 1.7 4.7 5
9 5 250 32 6.75 5 2 4.8 5
10 10 310 34 9.25 4.4 2 4.8 4.6

4. Development of regression relations for the weld bead geometry parameters

Linear regression equations are developed for the bead geometry parameters such as width of bead, depth of penetration,
throat length, and base leg length. These equations are established for each of output parameters by considering linearity in input
parameters. Pre-processed data obtained from experiments ( Tables 1 and 2) are used for training and testing purpose respectfully.

4.1. Linear regression model

A mathematical model is developed for predicting the relationship between the process parameter and the bead geometry. A
generalized response function for any bead shape parameters can be postulated as:

𝑌𝑛 = 𝑓 (𝑇 , 𝐼, 𝑉 , 𝑆) (3)

𝑌𝑛 = 𝛼0 + 𝛼1 𝑇 + 𝛼2 𝐼 + 𝛼3 𝑉 + 𝛼4 𝑆 (4)
where 𝑌𝑛 is the predicted bead geometry parameter and 𝛼1 , 𝛼2 , 𝛼3 , 𝛼4 are the estimated coefficients.

4.2. Evaluation of coefficients

The ‘‘linear regression’’ library of ‘‘sklearn’’ module is applied on the training data set. Coefficients for response variables are
then calculated. Finally, based on linear regression analysis the following linear equations are proposed as follows:
Equation for width:

𝑊 =5.70231832 − 0.51518823𝑇 + 1.28819674𝐼 − 1.20653336𝑉 − 0.81732366𝑆 (5)

Equation for depth of penetration:

𝑃 =1.09927399 + 0.13730178𝑇 + 0.95692073𝐼 + 0.78884736𝑉 − 0.80878598𝑆 (6)

Equation for length of throat of the bead:

𝑇 𝐻 =4.57137386 − 0.75246881𝑇 + 1.46922465𝐼 + 0.69473209𝑉 − 1.49694922𝑆 (7)

Equation for length of the leg base of the bead:

𝐿 =4.48675941 + 0.11731523𝑇 + 1.23693704𝐼 + 0.27055171𝑉 − 1.0234384𝑆 (8)

5. Modeling of artificial neural network

Artificial neural network is a tool used to predict complicated relations between input and output parameters mimicking just like
biological neural networks [22]. These neural networks are capable of learning from process and predict the solution of complex
problem with great deal of accuracy. Due to low prediction error, ANN is preferred over regression analysis [16]. A detailed
comparative analysis of bead geometry in submerged arc welding is provided by Sarkar et al. [16]. It is found that prediction
error using ANN is lower as compared to MLR. Similar kind of results also for TIG and FSW by Nagesh and Datta [13] and Gupta
et al. [23] respectively. Considering these aspects, developing an artificial neural network is given a consideration over regression
analysis.
In present work ‘‘Tensorflow’’ module used for developing the ANN model. The basic neural network model is explained in
Fig. 5. The neural network consists of different layers and neurons. This model consists of input layer (receives input parameters
through node), hidden layers and output layer (for prediction of response variables). After pre-processing of the data set as explained
in Section 3, it is further processed for modeling and training.

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Fig. 5. Artificial neural network schematic.

Fig. 6. ReLU activation function.

5.1. Hyper-parameter tuning

Hyper-parameters are the model parameters, which needs to be optimized to improve model performance. Since the size of the
data used in this type of study is small, a deep neural network is often avoided. In accordance with the previous studies, two hidden
layers are preferred [13]. The performance of the neural network is highly dependent on the neurons present in each of the layers,
increasing the neurons in each layer tends to increase the model performance. The drop-out ratio regularizes the rise in accuracy
from increased neurons and avoids over-fitting. The learning rate dictates the convergence towards a minimum loss function. A
large value of learning rate may not converge at the global minima of loss function, whereas choosing a very small value would
increase the computational cost. Hence, the hyper-parameters selected for this study are: number of neurons, drop-out rate, and
learning rate. ‘‘Random search’’ method from ‘‘KerasTuner’’ library package is used for tuning process [24]. Two hidden layers are
taken as layer 1 and layer 2 (with iterating neurons between 30 to 40, and step size = 1). The range for dropout rate is selected
from 0.1 to 0.6 with a step size of 0.05. Learning rate for the model is kept between 0.01 and 0.02. In this model the objective is to
minimize the loss function (mean absolute error). Hence the number of maximum trials is taken as 100 with 2 executions per trial,
and total number of epochs is 2500.

5.2. ANN model

After fine tuning the hyper-parameters, final ANN model is implemented. The final model has 4 layers with dropout layer placed
between hidden layer at a rate of 0.1. Activation function is the building block of any neural network. In this study, a popular
activation function ‘‘Rectified Linear Unit activation function’’ (ReLU) is applied to the hidden layers (Fig. 6) [25]. The ReLU
activation function avoids the vanishing gradient problem which gives it a distinct advantage over the other activation functions
(like the logistic (Sigmoid) and the Hyperbolic (Tanh) activation functions). Since the problem addressed in this study is a regression
problem and not a categorical problem, linear activation function is used in the output layer. The first hidden layer comprises of 34
neurons while 32 neurons were present in the second hidden layer. As there are 4 dependent variables, the output layer contains 4
neurons (one node for each variables).
The weights are initialized randomly using the ‘‘he-uniform’’ initialization technique [26]. This initialization technique has a
good compatibility with ReLU activation. Weights are initialized randomly considering the size of the previous layer for a quicker
and efficient global minimum cost function. A computationally efficient ‘‘Adam’’ optimizer (adaptive moment estimation) is used to

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Fig. 7. Neural network performance plot.

update weights and monitor optimization process [27]. Optimizer update the model in response to the output of the loss function.
Adam optimizer computes adaptive learning rate for each parameter combining the advantages of both gradient decent with
momentum and RMS prop algorithm. The robustness of the trained ANN model is emulated in Fig. 7. The loss function (mean
absolute error) for training and validation data is seen to stabilize after the first 1000 epochs. Since the loss function of the training
and validation data in Fig. 7 remains parallel and does not diverge from each other, the model seems to have low bias and low
variance.

5.3. Interpretation of ANN model

To explain the impact of the input variable on the ANN model an unique SHAP model is implemented in the Python script [28].
This algorithm assigns an importance value (SHAP value) for a prediction. Each feature or an input variable has a contribution to
the prediction of an output. The SHAP values are broadly understood to be the average of these marginal contributions of individual
features over the predictions made by the ANN model. The SHAP value can be expressed as a value function ‘‘𝑆 ’’ of features in the
following equation.
∑ |𝐶|! (𝑛 − |𝐶| − 1)!
𝜙𝑘 (𝑆) = {𝑆 (𝐶 ∪ {𝑘}) − 𝑆 (𝐶)} (9)
𝐶⊆{1,…,𝑛}∖{𝑘}
𝑛!
( )
𝑆𝑥 (𝐶) = 𝑓 𝑥1 , … ., 𝑥𝑛 𝑑P𝑥∉𝐶 − 𝐸𝐗 (𝑓 (𝐗)) (10)
∫
Where, 𝜙𝑘 is the contribution of 𝑘th feature on the prediction model 𝑓 (𝐗), 𝐶 is a subset of the feature or input variable, 𝑛 is
the number of features, 𝐗 is the vector of feature values of instance. 𝑆𝑥 (𝐶) is the prediction of the marginalized feature values in
set 𝐶 that are excluded from set 𝐶.
After calculating SHAP values for each instance, a matrix of SHAP values is obtained. This matrix has one row per data instance
and one column per feature. We can interpret the entire model by analyzing the Shapley values in this matrix.

6. Results and discussion

Multiple linear regression analysis is widely used as a prediction tool for evaluation of response parameters from process
variables [13,16,29]. Using the training data shown in Table 1, a multiple linear regression (MLR) model is developed. The final
MLR models for each of the bead variables are displayed from Eqs. (5) to (8). Using the developed MLR, the bead variables of the
test data are predicted (Table 2). To visualize the performance of each of the MLR models, the predicted values are plotted with the
each test variable (denoted as trails) in Fig. 9. Except for the depth of penetration (Fig. 9(b)), a reasonable discrepancies between the
predicted and test data is adhered in Figs. 9(a), 9(c), and 9(d). To further explore the performance of the MLR models, a statistical
analysis between the predicted and test data is performed (Table 3).
The statistical performance supports the observation of Fig. 9(b), that the MLR performs considerably well for the penetration
depth. The high correlation of 0.969, low RMSE of 0.062, and a small difference in the standard deviations of the test and predicted
penetration depth values exhibits the satisfactory performance of MLR while predicting the penetration depth. The correlation of
0.432, high RMSE of 0.251, and relatively higher standard deviation from the test set shows that the throat length is the worst
predicted variable by the MLR model. In attempt to improve the predictions, the ANN model is trained based on the same train
data as shown in Table 1.

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Fig. 8. Impact on model output.

Fig. 9. Experimental vs predicted values for MLR model.

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Table 3
Statistical table for MLR model.
R-squared RMSE STD_test STD_model
Width 0.825 0.182 0.484 0.379
Penetration depth 0.969 0.062 0.248 0.255
Throat length 0.432 0.251 0.254 0.210
Leg length 0.724 0.182 0.249 0.238

Table 4
Statistical table for ANN model.
R-squared RMSE STD_test STD_model
Width 0.979 0.099 0.484 0.451
Penetration depth 0.923 0.100 0.248 0.198
Throat length 0.908 0.106 0.254 0.229
Leg length 0.942 0.087 0.249 0.257

Table 5
Percentage of error in MLR and ANN prediction of response variables.
No of trials Width (W) Penetration (P) Throat (TH) Leg (L)
% error % error % error % error % error % error % error % error
MLR ANN MLR ANN MLR ANN MLR ANN
1 5.06 3.66 4.28 10.48 −5.55 4.26 −2.34 −0.96
2 −2.29 0.37 0.48 1.51 −2.12 −0.22 2.93 1.42
3 −14.19 −1.29 4.75 8.37 6.78 4.17 −0.87 3.63
4 −3.56 −3.17 0.78 6.15 −3.33 2.09 0.98 1.46
5 −7.86 2.37 −1.21 −6.25 −1.65 3.31 4.45 −0.35
6 1.27 0.42 2.68 4.95 −4.44 −0.27 0.28 −0.20
7 −10.80 −0.81 −0.31 −6.75 7.27 4.58 −1.40 −1.30
8 2.77 0.98 8.43 −0.36 −2.45 −0.88 3.35 2.95
9 −0.21 −0.50 3.66 4.46 −4.50 −0.02 0.61 −0.29
10 −4.22 −2.09 −4.30 1.11 8.15 −0.81 −9.96 −2.46

Similar to Fig. 9, to visualize the performance of the ANN model a comparison between the predicted and test set is depicted in
Fig. 10. An appreciable improvement in the predicting capacity of ANN model can be noted from Fig. 10. The discrepancies between
the predicted and test data is relatively less than the MLR models. A statistical analysis of the performance of the ANN model is
shown in Table 4. With the high correlation and lower RMSE, it is conclusive that all the bead variables are satisfactorily predicted
by the ANN model.
To further compare the performance of both the models, the percentage errors (difference between the predicted and test data)
is calculated as shown in Table 5. Maximum percentage of error (14.19%) is observed in case of MLR for width prediction. In most
of the cases error percentage is below 10% which is satisfactory in nature. Table 5 clearly indicates that ANN model predicted the
output variables with less error with a given set of weld conditions.
The SHAP plot shown in Fig. 8 explains the impact of different input features on the prediction made by ANN model. It shows
the plot between the average of modulus of SHAP value for output parameters against input parameters. Though the SHAP values
are a good indicator of the impact of each of the input parameter on the desired output, it should be noted that this method is
based on correlation and hence it is not a measure of causality. Among the input parameters the circuit current is seen to have
maximum impact on the prediction of the bead shape parameters, while the impact of the plate thickness is minimum. As the
heat input during a welding process is directly proportional to the square of the current (Joule heating), the maximum impact of
current on the prediction of bead shape parameters seems reasonable. Further observation suggests that the current has a maximum
impact on the width of the bead followed by the length of the leg. Whereas the penetration depth and throat length is relatively less
affected by the circuit current. Voltage also has a reasonable impact on the bead width. The weld speed and the thickness seems to
have a negligible impact on the bead shape. Thus this SHAP analysis shows that the major variables affecting the weld bead shape
are current followed by voltage. Hence in the welding process these parameters needs to be provided special attention rather than
thickness and welding speed.

7. Validation of the predictive model

An experiment is carried out for checking the performance of the predictive model in numerical analysis with FEM. Ann model
is used for calculating the bead geometry for a particular setting of welding parameters. A detailed comparison between the
temperature profiles obtained from FEM model and experiment at predetermined locations is provided. Mild steel plates welded
in a T-joint by CO2 shielded GMAW is used for this purpose. The welding parameters and plate thickness are given in Table 6.
The dimension of the plate and stiffener is shown in Fig. 11(a). Two K-type thermocouples are place at middle (X–X’) of the base
plate at distances 10 mm and 20 mm from the edge of the weld bead respectively (Fig. 12(a)). The temperature profile is recorded

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Fig. 10. Experimental vs predicted values for ANN model.

Table 6
Fillet welding parameters used for welding and testing ANN predictions.
Plate Welding Arc Welding
Input welding parameter
thickness current voltage speed
6mm 120 A 25 V 5 mm/s
Bead geometry parameters Width Depth of Throat Leg
predicted by ANN penetration length length
4.95 mm 1.02 mm 4.65 mm 4.85 mm

by Agilent 34972 A Data-logger. The bead geometry has significant effect on the thermal load distribution in the welding. The
finite element model is developed for the fillet weld using ABAQUS 6.14 and the predicted bead geometry is incorporated in the
model [30]. Sequentially coupled thermo-mechanical model is used for the numerical simulation. One set of operating welding input
data (Table 6) is given as input to the created ANN model. The output data obtained from the predictive model is the dimension
for the bead used in the finite element model. Bead width and leg length as predicted by the ANN model is rounded of as 6 mm
and 5 mm respectively (Table 6). Deposition of beads is carried sequentially by ‘‘Model change’’ method [30]. Similar material is
assumed for both base and weld metal. Temperature dependent material properties are provided in Fig. 11(b). Both convective and
radiative heat transfer are considered along with conduction. Eight-node three-dimensional brick elements are used for the final
mesh. The FE mesh with bead consists of 39,560 elements and 54,324 nodes respectively. This study uses similar configuration of
the Finite element model as used in the article by Pradhan et al. [31]. To verify the validity of the thermal model, temperature

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Fig. 11. (a)Schematic diagram for fillet welding and position of thermocouples (b) Thermal properties [31].

Fig. 12. (a)Position of thermocouples (b) Cross-section of the fillet weld at middle of the plate.

distribution calculated from numerical and obtained through in-house measurement are compared. Fig. 13 shows the temperature
distribution over the time at two thermocouple locations during the welding. A side by side comparison of the weld cross section
taken from middle of the plate (X–X’) is shown in Fig. 11(b). The heat affected zone and fusion zone are well comparable visually
in both FE model and experiment (Fig. 12(b)). Above observations shows that the results predicted by the numerical model with
predicted bead geometry are in good agreement with experimental results.

8. Conclusion

Based on the different welding input parameter ranges (plate thickness 3–10 mm, welding current 125–310 Amp, arc voltage
18–36 V and speed of weld 3.25–9.25 mm/s), multiple linear regression and artificial neural network models are developed and
used to predict the bead geometry parameters for GMAW welding process. The following conclusions are drawn comparing and
analyzing the two models:

1. Multiple linear regression and ANN model has a good correlation between the welding process parameters and the bead
geometry. Statistically ANN model is more accurate than MLR model.
2. The optimum architecture for the ANN model in this current work is 4-35-32-4. (Four neurons for input layer, 35 and 32
neurons for intermediate layers, and four neurons for output layer.)
3. Thermal profile obtained from numerical model based on ANN predicted bead geometry is well comparable with experimen-
tally measured temperature data. Depth of fusion zone from numerical model is also found to be in good agreement with the
experimental data.

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Fig. 13. Temperature distribution at thermocouple location A (TC-A) and location B (TC-B).

4. ANN model provided better accuracy as compared to MLR model in terms of prediction as both the model has maximum
error less than 15%. Hence proposed ANN model can be effectively used as a prediction tool for bead geometry parameters
for GMAW for being used in a numerical model.
5. The outcomes from the SHAP value indicated that circuit current is impactful on the bead shape parameters followed by arc
voltage, welding speed and plate thickness.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

R. Pradhan: Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Writing – review & editing. A.P. Joshi: Data curation, Software, Editing.
M.R. Sunny: Conceptualization, Supervision, Reviewing. A. Sarkar: Conceptualization, Supervision, Reviewing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Acknowledgment

Experiments presented in the paper have been carried out in Marine Structural Workshop, Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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