This research aims to develop ensemble machine-learning methods for forecasting the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of friction stir welding (FSW). The substance utilized in the experiment was a mixture of aluminum alloys AA5083 and AA5061. An ensemble machine learning model was created to predict the UTS of the friction stir-welded seam, utilizing 11 FSW parameters as input factors and the UTS as a response variable. The proposed approach used the Gaussian process regression (GPR) and the support vector machine (SVM) model of machine learning to build the ensemble machine learning model. In addition, an efficient technique using a differential evolution algorithm to optimize the weight for the decision fusion was incorporated into the proposed model. The effectiveness of the model was evaluated using three datasets. The first and second datasets were divided into two groups, with 80% for the training dataset and 20% for the testing dataset, while the third dataset comprised the test data to validate the model’s accuracy. The computational results indicated that the proposed model provides more accurate forecasts than existing methods, such as random forest, gradient boosting, ADA boosting, and the original SVM and GPR, by 30.67, 49.18, 16.50, 48.87, and 49.33 %, respectively. In terms of prediction accuracy, the suggested technique for decision fusion surpasses unweighted average ensemble learning (UWE) by 10.32%.

Friction stir welding is a material processing technique used to combine dissimilar and similar materials. Ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is one of the most common objectives of welding, especially friction stir welding (FSW). Typically, destructive testing is utilized to measure the UTS of a welded seam. Testing for the UTS of a weld seam typically involves cutting the specimen and utilizing a machine capable of testing for UTS. In this study, an ensemble deep learning model was developed to classify the UTS of the FSW weld seam. Consequently, the model could classify the quality of the weld seam in relation to its UTS using only an image of the weld seam. Five distinct convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were employed to form the heterogeneous ensemble deep learning model in the proposed model. In addition, image segmentation, image augmentation, and an efficient decision fusion approach were implemented in the proposed model. To test the model, 1664 pictures of weld seams were created and tested using the model. The weld seam UTS quality was divided into three categories: below 70% (low quality), 70–85% (moderate quality), and above 85% (high quality) of the base material. AA5083 and AA5061 were the base materials used for this study. The computational results demonstrate that the accuracy of the suggested model is 96.23%, which is 0.35% to 8.91% greater than the accuracy of the literature’s most advanced CNN model.

This study introduces a modified differential evolution approach (MoDE) for evaluating the optimal objective and parameter values of the friction stir welding (FSW) process of dissimilar materials: AA5083 and AA6061. The aim of this study is to investigate the ultimate (UTS), maximum hardness (MH), and minimum heat input (HI) of the weld zone. The controlled welding parameters were shoulder diameter, rotation speed, welding speed, tilt angle, pin type, reinforcement particle type, and tool pin movement direction. The D-optimal experimental design method was used to create the experiment and obtain the mathematical model for optimizing the targeted objectives. The optimal rotational speed, welding speed, shoulder diameter, tilt angle, pin-type, additive type, and tool pin movement are 1162.81 rpm, 52.73 mm/min, 21.17 mm, 2.37 degrees, straight cylindrical, silicon carbide, and straight movement direction, respectively. The optimal values for UTS, MH, and HI are 264.68 MPa, 105.56 HV, and 415.26 °C, respectively. The MoDE outcome exceeded particle swarm optimization (PSO), the original differential evolution algorithm (DE), and the D-optimal design (experiment) results. The MoDE provides better UTS, MH, and HI than other approaches by an average of 8.04%, 4.44%, and 2.44%, respectively. In particular, when comparing results produced by using various approaches, we discovered that the MoDE results are 7.45%, 4.45%, and 3.50% better than PSO, DE, and the experimental results, respectively. All methods were evaluated for their reliability by comparing the results of actual experiments to those predicted by theory, and we discovered that the MoDE yielded the smallest percentage difference between the two, at 1.49%, while PSO and DE yielded differences of 5.19% and 3.71%, respectively.

This research aims to solve the problem of the raw milk collection and transportation system which can be interpreted as a special case of the vehicle routing problem. In the proposed problem, the factory will send the trucks, multiple fleets composed of several compartments, to collect the raw milk from the raw milk farms. The objective of this research is to minimize the total transportation cost and the trucks’ and tanks’ cleaning costs. The transportation cost directly depends on the fuel usage. The fuel usage occurs during the transportation of the milk and during the waiting times when it arrives at the factory and cannot transfer the raw milk into the production tank. We develop the modified differential evolution algorithm (MDE) to solve the proposed problem. The original process of the Differential Evolution algorithm (DE) has been modified in two folds which are as follows: (1) In the recombination process, the 2nd order of trial vectors has been generated using 3 different strategies and compared with the 1st order trial vector; the better from the 1st and the 2nd order of trial vectors will move to the selection process. (2) The probability function has been used to select the new target vector from one of two sources which are the trial vector and the current target vector so that the worse solution can be accepted in order to increase the diversity of the original DE. The computational result shows that the modified DE (MDE) outperforms the original DE in finding a better solution.