A Hybrid Deep Learning and Machine Learning-Based Approach to Classify Defects in Hot Rolled Steel Strips for Smart Manufacturing

Smart manufacturing is a process that optimizes factory performance and production quality by utilizing various technologies including the Internet of Things(IoT)and artificial intelligence(AI).Quality control is an important part of today’s smart manufacturing process,effectively reducing costs and enhancing operational efficiency.As technology in the industry becomes more advanced,identifying and classifying defects has become an essential element in ensuring the quality of products during the manufacturing process.In this study,we introduce a CNN model for classifying defects on hot-rolled steel strip surfaces using hybrid deep learning techniques,incorporating a global average pooling(GAP)layer and a machine learning-based SVM classifier,with the aim of enhancing accuracy.Initially,features are extracted by the VGG19 convolutional block.Then,after processing through the GAP layer,the extracted features are fed to the SVM classifier for classification.For this purpose,we collected images from publicly available datasets,including the Xsteel surface defect dataset(XSDD)and the NEU surface defect(NEU-CLS)datasets,and we employed offline data augmentation techniques to balance and increase the size of the datasets.The outcome of experiments shows that the proposed methodology achieves the highest metrics score,with 99.79%accuracy,99.80%precision,99.79%recall,and a 99.79%F1-score for the NEU-CLS dataset.Similarly,it achieves 99.64%accuracy,99.65%precision,99.63%recall,and a 99.64%F1-score for the XSDD dataset.A comparison of the proposed methodology to the most recent study showed that it achieved superior results as compared to the other studies.

Characterization of the Delamination Defects in Marine Steel Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

In this paper, two types of comparison analyses, bulk analysis and defect analysis, were carried out for marine steel. The results of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy （LIBS） were compared with those of spark optical emission spectrometry （Spark-OES） and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersion spectroscopy （SEM/EDS） in the bulk and defect analyses. The comparison of the bulk analyses shows that the chemical contents of C, Si, Mn, P, S and Cr obtained from LIBS agree well with those determined using Spark-OES. The LIBS is slightly less precise than Spark-OES. Defects were characterized in the two-dimensional distribution analysis mode for Al, Mg, Ca, Si and other elements. Both the LIBS and SEM/EDS results show the enrichment of Al, Mg, Ca and Si at the defect position and the two methods agree well with each other. SEM/EDS cannot provide information about the difference in the chemical constituents when the differences between the defect position and the normal position are not significant. However, LIBS can provide this information, meaning that the sensitivity of LIBS is higher than that of SEM/EDS. LIBS can be used to rapidly characterize marine steel defects and provide guidance for improving metallurgical processes.

Multiaxial Fatigue Analysis on Reeled Deepwater Steel Catenary Risers with Girth Weld Defects

In the present study, we simulated the reel-lay installation process of deepwater steel catenary risers（SCRs） using the finite element method and proposed multiaxial fatigue analysis for reeled SCRs. The reel-lay method is one of the most efficient and economical pipeline installation methods. However, material properties of reeled risers may change, especially in the weld zone, which can affect the fatigue performance. Applying finite element analysis（FEA）, we simulated an installation load history through the reel, aligner, and straightener and analyzed the property variations. The impact of weld defects during the installation process, lack of penetration and lack of fusion, was also discussed. Based on the FEA results, we used the Brown-Miller criterion combined with the critical plane approach to predict the fatigue life of reeled and non-reeled models. The results indicated that a weld defect has a significant influence on the material properties of a riser, and the reel-lay method can significantly reduce the fatigue life of SCRs. The analysis conclusion can help designers understand the mechanical performance of welds during reel-lay installation.

Effects of hot top pulsed magneto-oscillation on solidification structure of steel ingot

Achieving a uniform structure with few defects in heavy steel ingot is of high commercial importance. In this present work, in order to verify the potential of pulsed magneto-oscillation(PMO) applied in the production of heavy ingot, an induction coil was located at the hot top of the steel ingot to develop a novel technique, named hot top pulsed magneto oscillation(HPMO). The influences of HPMO on the solidification structure, macro segregation and compactness of a cylindrical medium carbon steel ingot with the weight of 160 kg were systematically investigated by optical microscope(OM) and laser induced breakdown spectroscopy original position metal analyzer(LIBSOPA-100). The results show that HPMO not only causes significant grain refinement and promotes the occurrence of columnar to equiaxed transition(CET) but also can homogenize the carbon distribution and enhance the compactness of the steel ingot. Therefore, HPMO technique has the potential to be applied in the production of heavy steel ingots on an industrial scale.

DLF-YOLOF:an improved YOLOF-based surface defect detection for steel plate

Surface defects can affect the quality of steel plate.Many methods based on computer vision are currently applied to surface defect detection of steel plate.However,their real-time performance and object detection of small defect are still unsatisfactory.An improved object detection network based on You Only Look One-level Feature(YOLOF)is proposed to show excellent performance in surface defect detection of steel plate,called DLF-YOLOF.First,the anchor-free detector is used to reduce the network hyperparameters.Secondly,deformable convolution network and local spatial attention module are introduced into the feature extraction network to increase the contextual information in the feature maps.Also,the soft non-maximum suppression is used to improve detection accuracy significantly.Finally,data augmentation is performed for small defect objects during training to improve detection accuracy.Experiments show the average precision and average precision for small objects are 42.7%and 33.5%at a detection speed of 62 frames per second on a single GPU,respectively.This shows that DLF-YOLOF has excellent performance to meet the needs of industrial real-time detection.

Multi-class classification method for strip steel surface defects based on support vector machine with adjustable hyper-sphere

Focusing on strip steel surface defects classification, a novel support vector machine with adjustable hyper-sphere （AHSVM） is formulated. Meanwhile, a new multi-class classification method is proposed. Originated from support vector data description, AHSVM adopts hyper-sphere to solve classification problem. AHSVM can obey two principles： the margin maximization and inner-class dispersion minimization. Moreover, the hyper-sphere of AHSVM is adjustable, which makes the final classification hyper-sphere optimal for training dataset. On the other hand, AHSVM is combined with binary tree to solve multi-class classification for steel surface defects. A scheme of samples pruning in mapped feature space is provided, which can reduce the number of training samples under the premise of classification accuracy, resulting in the improvements of classification speed. Finally, some testing experiments are done for eight types of strip steel surface defects. Experimental results show that multi-class AHSVM classifier exhibits satisfactory results in classification accuracy and efficiency.

Unbalanced classification method using least squares support vector machine with sparse strategy for steel surface defects with label noise

Least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) plays an important role in steel surface defects classification because of its high speed. However, the defect samples obtained from the real production line may be noise. LS-SVM suffers from the poor classification performance in the classification stage when there are noise samples. Thus, in the classification stage, it is necessary to design an effective algorithm to process the defects dataset obtained from the real production line. To this end, an adaptive weight function was employed to reduce the adverse effect of noise samples. Moreover, although LSSVM offers fast speed, it still suffers from a high computational complexity if the number of training samples is large. The time for steel surface defects classification should be as short as possible. Therefore, a sparse strategy was adopted to prune the training samples. Finally, since the steel surface defects classification belongs to unbalanced data classification, LSSVM algorithm is not applicable. Hence, the unbalanced data information was introduced to improve the classification performance. Comprehensively considering above-mentioned factors, an improved LS-SVM classification model was proposed, termed as ILS-SVM. Experimental results show that the new algorithm has the advantages of high speed and great anti-noise ability.

Multi-class classification method for steel surface defects with feature noise

Defect classification is the key task of a steel surface defect detection system.The current defect classification algorithms have not taken the feature noise into consideration.In order to reduce the adverse impact of feature noise,an anti-noise multi-class classification method was proposed for steel surface defects.On the one hand,a novel anti-noise support vector hyper-spheres(ASVHs)classifier was formulated.For N types of defects,the ASVHs classifier built N hyper-spheres.These hyper-spheres were insensitive to feature and label noise.On the other hand,in order to reduce the costs of online time and storage space,the defect samples were pruned by support vector data description with parameter iteration adjustment strategy.In the end,the ASVHs classifier was built with sparse defect samples set and auxiliary information.Experimental results show that the novel multi-class classification method has high efficiency and accuracy for corrupted defect samples in steel surface.