Artificial neural networks for predicting sliding friction and wear properties of polyphenylene sulfide composites

In this paper the potential of using artificial neural networks (ANNs) for the prediction of sliding friction and wear properties of polymer composites was explored using a newly measured dataset of 124 independent pin-on-disk sliding wear tests of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) matrix composites. The ANN prediction profiles for the characteristic tribological properties exhibited very good agreement with the measured results demonstrating that a well trained network had been created. The data from an independent validation test series indicated that the trained neural network possessed enough generalization capability to predict input data that were different from the original training dataset. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.