Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks

Many glass products require thermoformed geometry with high precision. However, the traditional approach of developing a thermoforming process through trials and errors can cause a large waste of time and resources and often fails to produce successful outcomes. Hence, there is a need to develop an...

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Main Authors: Yuzhou Zhang, Mohan Hua, Jinan Liu, Haihui Ruan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-09-01
Series:Machine Learning with Applications
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827025000842
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author Yuzhou Zhang
Mohan Hua
Jinan Liu
Haihui Ruan
author_facet Yuzhou Zhang
Mohan Hua
Jinan Liu
Haihui Ruan
author_sort Yuzhou Zhang
collection DOAJ
description Many glass products require thermoformed geometry with high precision. However, the traditional approach of developing a thermoforming process through trials and errors can cause a large waste of time and resources and often fails to produce successful outcomes. Hence, there is a need to develop an efficient predictive model, replacing the costly simulations or experiments, to assist the design of precision glass thermoforming. In this work, we report a surrogate model, based on a dimensionless back-propagation neural network (BPNN), that can adequately predict the form errors and thus compensate for these errors in mold design using geometric features and process parameters as inputs. Our trials with simulation and industrial data indicate that the surrogate model can predict forming errors with adequate accuracy. Although perception errors (mold designers’ decisions) and mold fabrication errors make the industrial training data less reliable than simulation data, our preliminary training and testing results still achieved a reasonable consistency with industrial data, suggesting that the surrogate models are directly implementable in the glass-manufacturing industry.
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institution Kabale University
issn 2666-8270
language English
publishDate 2025-09-01
publisher Elsevier
record_format Article
series Machine Learning with Applications
spelling doaj-art-aebda15656704dfba35138dd5f8307032025-08-20T03:25:29ZengElsevierMachine Learning with Applications2666-82702025-09-012110070110.1016/j.mlwa.2025.100701Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networksYuzhou Zhang0Mohan Hua1Jinan Liu2Haihui Ruan3Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, ChinaBiel Crystal (HK) Manufactory Ltd., Hong Kong, ChinaDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China; PolyU-Daya Bay Technology and Innovation Research Institute, Huizhou, Guangdong, China; Corresponding author.Many glass products require thermoformed geometry with high precision. However, the traditional approach of developing a thermoforming process through trials and errors can cause a large waste of time and resources and often fails to produce successful outcomes. Hence, there is a need to develop an efficient predictive model, replacing the costly simulations or experiments, to assist the design of precision glass thermoforming. In this work, we report a surrogate model, based on a dimensionless back-propagation neural network (BPNN), that can adequately predict the form errors and thus compensate for these errors in mold design using geometric features and process parameters as inputs. Our trials with simulation and industrial data indicate that the surrogate model can predict forming errors with adequate accuracy. Although perception errors (mold designers’ decisions) and mold fabrication errors make the industrial training data less reliable than simulation data, our preliminary training and testing results still achieved a reasonable consistency with industrial data, suggesting that the surrogate models are directly implementable in the glass-manufacturing industry.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827025000842Glass productsPrecision thermoformingError compensationNeural networkBPNN
spellingShingle Yuzhou Zhang
Mohan Hua
Jinan Liu
Haihui Ruan
Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
Machine Learning with Applications
Glass products
Precision thermoforming
Error compensation
Neural network
BPNN
title Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
title_full Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
title_fullStr Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
title_full_unstemmed Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
title_short Precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
title_sort precision glass thermoforming assisted by neural networks
topic Glass products
Precision thermoforming
Error compensation
Neural network
BPNN
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827025000842
work_keys_str_mv AT yuzhouzhang precisionglassthermoformingassistedbyneuralnetworks
AT mohanhua precisionglassthermoformingassistedbyneuralnetworks
AT jinanliu precisionglassthermoformingassistedbyneuralnetworks
AT haihuiruan precisionglassthermoformingassistedbyneuralnetworks