Developing a Support Vector Regression (SVR) Model for Prediction of Main and Lateral Bending Angles in Laser Tube Bending Process

The laser tube bending process (LTBP) is a new and powerful manufacturing method for bending tubes more accurately and economically by eliminating the bending die. The irradiated laser beam creates a local plastic deformation area, and the bending of the tube occurs depending on the magnitude of the heat absorbed by the tube and its material characteristics. The main bending angle and lateral bending angle are the output variables of the LTBP. In this study, the output variables are predicted by support vector regression (SVR) modeling, which is an effective methodology in machine learning. The SVR input data is provided by performing 92 experimental tests determined by the design of the experimental techniques. The measurement results are divided into two sub-datasets: 70% for the training dataset, and 30% for the testing dataset. The inputs of the SVR model are process parameters, which can be listed as the laser power, laser beam diameter, scanning speed, irradiation length, irradiation scheme, and the number of irradiations. Two SVR models are developed for the prediction of the output variables separately. The SVR predictor achieved a mean absolute error of 0.021/0.003, a mean absolute percentage error of 1.485/1.849, a root mean square error of 0.039/0.005, and a determination factor of 93.5/90.8% for the main/lateral bending angle. Accordingly, the SVR models prove the possibility of applying SVR to the prediction of the main bending angle and lateral bending angle in LTBP with quite an acceptable accuracy.