The Use of Artificial Intelligence for Quality Assessment of Refill Friction Stir Spot Welded Thin Joints

This paper presents a machine learning and image segmentation based advanced quality assessment technique for thin refill friction stir spot welded (RFSSW) joints. In particular, the research focuses on developing a predictive support vector machines (SVM) model. The purpose of this model is to facilitate the selection of RFSSW process parameters in order to increase the shear load capacity of joints. In addition, an improved weld quality assessment algorithm based on optical analysis was developed. The research methodology includes specimen preparation stages, mechanical tests, and algorithmic analysis, culminating in a machine learning model trained on experimental data. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the model in selecting welding process parameters and assessing weld quality, offering significant improvements compared to standard techniques. The optimized SVM model, employing the radial basis function (RBF) kernel, achieved a lower root mean square error of 257.9 and a high correlation coefficient of 0.95, indicating a strong linear relationship between the predicted and actual shear load capacities. This research not only proposes a novel approach to optimizing welding parameters but also facilitates automatic quality assessment, potentially revolutionizing and spreading the application of the RFSSW technique in various industries.