See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/359888808

Data-Driven Modeling of Mechanical Properties for 17-4 PH Stainless Steel

Built by Additive Manufacturing

Article in Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation · April 2022

DOI: 10.1007/s40192-022-00261-8

CITATIONS READS

5 191

4 authors, including:

Michael Porro Akanksha Parmar

Purdue University Purdue University
1 PUBLICATION 5 CITATIONS 1 PUBLICATION 5 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Yung Shin
Purdue University
386 PUBLICATIONS 18,843 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Akanksha Parmar on 26 July 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40192-022-00261-8

TECHNICAL ARTICLE

Data‑Driven Modeling of Mechanical Properties for 17‑4 PH Stainless

Steel Built by Additive Manufacturing
Michael Porro1 · Bin Zhang1 · Akanksha Parmar1 · Yung C. Shin1

Received: 10 December 2021 / Accepted: 23 March 2022 / Published online: 11 April 2022
© The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society 2022

Abstract
This study examines the link between microstructure and mechanical properties of additively manufactured metal parts
by developing a predictive model that can estimate properties such as ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, and elonga-
tion at fracture based upon microstructural data for 17-4 PH stainless steel. The main benefit of the approach presented
is the generalizability, as necessary testing is further reduced in comparison with similar methods that generate full pro-
cess–structure–property linkages. Data were collected from the available literature on AM-built 17-4 PH stainless steel,
in-house tensile testing and imaging, and testing conducted by an AM company. After standardizing the image size and grain
boundary extraction via image processing, the features such as grain size distributions and aspect ratios were extracted. By
using artificial neural networks, relationships were established between grain size and shape features and corresponding
mechanical properties, and subsequently, properties were predicted for novel samples to which the network had not previ-
ously been exposed. The model produced correlation coefficients of R2 = 0.957 for ultimate tensile strength, R2 = 0.939 for
yield strength, and R2 = 0.931 for fracture elongation. These results demonstrate the efficacy of predictive models that focus
upon microstructure–property relationships and highlight an opportunity for further exploration as predictive modeling of
metal additive manufacturing continues to improve.

Keywords Additive manufacturing · Data-driven model · 17-4 PH stainless steel · Mechanical properties · Microstructure

Introduction Unfortunately, several hurdles impede the proliferation

The ability to additively manufacture metal parts presents
an opportunity to spark a major change in a variety of
industries. From producing aircraft parts to turbine blades
for energy production, additive manufacturing of metal has
the potential to be a transformative production process. Its
advantages include greatly shortened lead time for prototyp-
ing, a reduction in material waste, the ability to build unique
and complex geometries, and a reduced need for assembly
upon build completion. Given the lack of need for tooling,
along with the ability to build parts in small quantities with-
out as many fixed manufacturing costs as traditional pro-
cesses, metal additive manufacturing (AM) is an optimal
choice in many cases for small volume production runs.
* Yung C. Shin
shin@purdue.edu
1
Center for Laser‑Based Manufacturing, School
of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
of additive manufacturing. One such barrier is the high
cost associated with determining the requisite operating
parameters for printing metal materials by AM to achieve
the desired microstructural and mechanical properties. This
high upfront cost significantly hinders widespread adoption
in the industry. The objective of this study is to establish a
procedure to reduce this cost by using data-driven modeling
to predict the mechanical properties of AM-built 17-4 PH
stainless steel parts. Without predictive modeling, process
parameters for optimal or even successful operation must
be determined experimentally or by using the parameters
already developed by those who produce AM systems,
which limits the potential for both the rapid implementation
of AM and customization of part performance. By utilizing
the method outlined in this study, the degree to which trial-
and-error strategies must be applied in the development of
additively manufactured metal parts to meet required design
and performance specifications can be reduced. Ideally, with
sufficiently advanced predictive tools, parts of specific ten-
sile strength or ductility, for example, could be produced

13
Vol.:(0123456789)
242
with minimal experimentation based on known relationships
between process parameters, microstructures, and mechani-
cal properties.
Traditional methods of determining mechanical proper-
ties include tensile or compression testing of many sam-
ples to determine mechanical characteristics such as yield
strength, ductility, and ultimate tensile/compressive strength,
but this process is expensive and time-consuming in compar-
ison with predictive methods. Given the wide range of addi-
tive manufacturing procedures that have recently become
available as well as the number of materials, performing
mechanical testing of all the parts can become a limiting
factor for transitioning new AM methods from niche or
experimental usage to more widely accepted industry usage.
In comparison with tensile testing of many individual ten-
sile bars and experimentally determining every mechanical
property, a predictive approach to determine the mechanical
properties based on known microstructures can provide a
faster and cheaper solution.
Although physics-based multi-scale modeling is a prom-
ising strategy, high-fidelity modeling approaches capable
of accounting for microstructural details are presently very
computationally expensive and cannot be applied to large-
scale parts. This is because, in order to predict the macro-
mechanical behavior of materials, the physics-based meth-
ods may need to iteratively simulate the interactions among
microelements (i.e., molecules, grains). Therefore, even
simulating for a small volume of material may take con-
siderable time. On the contrary, the data-driven approaches
could learn the linkage between the overall characteristics
of microstructures and mechanical properties, given that
a sufficient and representative dataset for the material of
interest can be collected. Once established, the data-driven
model can provide a quicker way of predicting mechanical
properties based on given microstructure information for
the same material regardless of the operating parameters
Table 1  Summary of common methods for predicting properties in additively manufactured materials
Strategy Data upon which predictions are made
Characteristics used in this study
Machine-learning models Microstructure of built part
Test data of built parts
Characteristics used in other studies
Mechanistic models [3] Known material properties and composition
information [1, 2]
Trial and error [1] Test conditions [1, 2]
Multiphysics modeling [4, 5] AM method and process parameters [3, 8]
Governing equations [7, 11] Post-processing data [2]
FEM simulations [7, 11] Thermal history [9]
13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
and processes used. Such data-driven modeling can also
utilize the widely available but scattered microstructure
data with corresponding mechanical properties in the lit-
erature, thereby further reducing the expenses and costs of
generating requisite data. If a suitably trained data-driven
model, such as an artificial neural network, is established
and exposed to an appropriate dataset, mechanical proper-
ties can be predicted within a range based upon knowledge
of microstructural characteristics without the need for much
further testing.
Applications of machine learning models in the context
of manufacturing are well documented in the literature. Neu-
ral networks have been applied to predicting the mechani-
cal properties of traditionally manufactured steels since
the early 2000s. For example, Tenner et al. [1] predicted
the effects of heat treatment on traditionally manufactured
steels, and Sterjovski et al. [2] similarly used backpropa-
gation network models to predict a variety of mechanical
properties for heat-treated and traditionally manufactured
steels. The studies concluded that given knowledge of com-
position, test conditions, and post-processing parameters, a
neural network could accurately predict resultant properties.
Since these early applications of neural networks to material
property prediction, the practice has proliferated to include a
variety of strategies and outcomes (see Table 1).
Techniques have been developed to simulate entire
microstructures based on powder characteristics, deposi-
tion methods, and heating conditions, but these require a
trade-off between model fidelity and computational expense
[3]. Popova et al. [4] developed a strategy for obtaining pro-
cess–structure–property linkages using simulated micro-
structures generated by the Monte Carlo method. This
method specifies a particular set of operating conditions as
an input for each model rather than generalizing its approach
to a wide variety of AM processes applied to a given mate-
rial. In 2020, Herriot and Spear [5] used convolutional
Form of prediction Applicable materials
Yield strength Metals
Ultimate tensile strength
Fracture strain
(properties as observed in tensile tests)
Simulated microstructure [4, 5] Plastics [8]
Fatigue behavior [6] Organic materials
Property maps [4, 5, 7] Composites [7]
Young’s modulus [10] Ceramics
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
neural networks and synthetic 3D microstructures (gener-
ated using Dream3D) to predict microstructure-dependent
physical properties of 316L steel built by simulated directed
laser deposition (DLD). This study was able to predict yield
strength with an R2 value of up to 0.95 using synthetic 3D
images and grain orientation information.
Some challenges with these methods include the possible
variance in process conditions in different sections of an
AM part, as well as the need to account for defects in AM
metal parts, though many studies have been published on
this particular subject. As an alternative to simulating micro-
structures, basing predictions on observable microstructure
characteristics allows for the overall computational cost of
producing a machine learning model to be lowered. One
such study conducted by Wan et al. [6] focused on fatigue
properties of AM metal parts and relied on data samples
collected near stress concentrations on a built part to acquire
data that could be used to predict future performance. Yang
et al. [7] developed a method to predict mechanical proper-
ties as well as local features such as stress concentrations
in 2D composites using generative adversarial networks
(GANs). Similar to the method outlined later in this study,
this method used a collection of images as part of the input
data for the neural network. This model was able to predict
stress field behavior for a coarse resolution.
Machine learning (ML) methods for tensile test result
prediction have been applied with great success to other
additively manufactured materials, such as plastics. In one
such study, Bayratkar et al. [8] were able to achieve an R2
value of over 0.999 using a similar network structure and
the same network algorithm as used in the current study.
However, the study by Bayrathkar et al. based predictions
on processing parameters rather than microstructure data.
Data types to be used as input information for a neural net-
work are a key consideration in applying ML to property
prediction, as the factors that can influence these traits are
numerous.
A variety of creative approaches have been combined
with the capabilities of machine learning models to predict
or measure property data. Xie et al. [9] utilized thermal his-
tory data obtained by IR scanning of the 3D-printed parts
undergoing the cooling process to train convolutional neural
networks to predict UTS values (among other properties) at
several points within the part body. This process has a great
effect on a part’s eventual microstructure and represents one
predictive method that can be generalized to apply to many
different AM procedures. Lu et al. [10] developed a method
of property measurement using instrumented indentation
and simulated test data to accurately measure properties of
metals, particularly Young’s modulus. One advantage of this
test method is that it can be nondestructive for large samples.
Yan et al. [11] combined a variety of approaches, including
FEM simulations and powder spreading characteristics to
243
produce PSP linkages. This study took a modular approach
to prediction and utilized several distinct data sets to arrive
at each prediction of cycles to failure.
While it has been well established that neural networks
can predict mechanical properties of steels and even account
for the effects of post-processing, the application of these
techniques to additively manufactured steels is compara-
tively new and unexplored. A 2015 review published by Gao
et al. [12] asserts that the imprecise nature of current meth-
ods for determining optimal parameters for metal AM pro-
cesses is one of the main difficulties hindering the adoption
of metal AM as a widespread procedure. It can be argued
that simulations and machine learning-based approaches
to process optimization must be further developed to make
metal AM a more viable manufacturing process in a broader
range of industries, despite difficulties associated with
generating high-fidelity models. A particular strength of
machine learning is that a variety of accessible programs
such as MATLAB exist, which can be used to train data-
driven models. Thus, the procedure is replicable and can be
adapted to a user’s specific needs. No matter what method
is chosen; however, some amount of validation must be con-
ducted by comparing predicted results with those observed
in laboratory testing.
Additive manufacturing can be approached from a
three-tiered perspective. The first tier consists of material
and feedstock properties, build conditions and process,
and post-processing parameters. The second tier consists
of microstructural characteristics which can be observed
after all printing and processing are complete, and the third
tier consists of the mechanical properties and performance
of a complete part. This model focuses on the connection
between tiers two and three, as opposed to specifying the
model in terms of whole product–process–performance link-
ages. The advantage of this type of model is that once estab-
lished, it is applicable to the same material regardless of
processes and the process parameters used and hence serves
as a universal model. By generalizing the microstructure and
property relationship that can be applied to a given material,
this model can be used to make satisfactory predictions for a
whole set of linkages instead of necessitating a new model
for each individual process change for a given material. In
fact, a wide variety of microstructure types and processing
parameters would strengthen this sort of model, meaning
that as experimentation continues in the field, the accuracy
of this model can improve.
This study focused on predicting various mechanical
properties of 17-4 PH stainless steel, specifically, and did
so based on both microstructural images of built samples and
data acquired from tensile testing of AM parts. The model
employs machine learning in the form of artificial neural
networks as opposed to FEM simulations, derived govern-
ing equations, or mechanistic models. Finally, this study
13
244 Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255

presents predictions of various attributes of mechanical
properties, rather than focusing only on one and the model
output includes predicted values for ultimate tensile strength,
yield strength, and fracture elongation. Other models as
listed in Table 1 have produced simulated microstructures
or predicted fatigue behavior; however, the current study
focuses on predicting resultant properties based upon images
containing microstructure data regardless of processes and
process parameters.
Experiments, Data Collection,
and Preprocessing
Data/Sample Collection
Some data used in this study were collected from the pre-
viously published literature in the form of microstructure
images and corresponding mechanical properties for these
samples. Ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, and frac-
ture strain data were collected. As demonstrated in Fig. 1,
images used in the study were meant to show many grains in
order to accurately demonstrate generalizable microstructure
characteristics for the whole sample. These microstructure
characteristics, such as grain size distribution, grain orien-
tation, and grain shape, are ultimately what determines the
mechanical properties of the sample. For example, one such
relationship is the Hall–Petch effect, which shows the cor-
relation between grain size results and yield strength. Based
on the microstructure information made available to the arti-
ficial neural network, it iteratively derives similar relations,
which form the basis of predicted microstructural properties.
Figure 1 shows an example of data collected from the
literature. Table 2 contains information regarding the col-
lected dataset and sources utilized to collect it. The data
collected from available literature consisted of tests con-
ducted on selective laser melting (SLM) and laser powder
bed fusion (LPBF).

Physical Sample Preparation

Physical samples were sourced from two companies: Digi-

Fig.1  An example of collected micrograph illustrating grain mor-
phology [13]
tal Metal and Innovative 3D Manufacturing. Twenty-three
samples were tested in total, eight from Digital Metal and
15 from Innovative 3D Manufacturing. The samples from
Digital Metal were built using binder jetting and were built
in the flat orientation (see Fig. 2). The samples from Innova-
tive 3D Manufacturing were built using a spot-heating-based
AM process (Renishaw AM), and five samples were built
in the flat, upright, and vertical orientations, respectively
(see Fig. 2).
Two regions in the gage section of tested samples were
chosen to examine the microstructure morphology: one
closer to the gripping area and one closer to the frac-
ture as shown in Fig. 3. For microstructure characteri-
zation, the tested samples were cross-sectioned with an

Table 2  Data from the related Sources UTS range (MPa) YS range (MPa) Ductility (%) Manufactur-
literature ing process
used

Yadollahi et al. [13] 940–960 635–725 3.33–4 SLM

Rafi et al. [14] 944 570 50 SLM
Yadollahi et al. [15] 940–1060 580–650 2.8–14.5 LPBF
Pasebani et al. [16] 990–1368 500–1255 2–5.5 SLM
Hsu et al. [17] 1003–1352 821–1229 7.3–13.8 SLM
Mahmoudi et al. [18] 950–1010 600–650 4–6.4 SLM
Alnajjar et. al. [19] 930–1130 850–1050 20.8–25.9 SLM
Yadollahi et al. [20] 1410 1250 11 SLM
Wang et al. [21] 744–882 541–568 30–42 SLM

13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
Fig. 2  Sample build orientations
­Al2O3 abrasive cutting wheel at 3000 RPM and mounted
in bakelite. The mounted samples were ground using
#180–#1200 SiC papers followed by mechanical polish-
ing with 3 μm diamond paste and 0.5 μm colloidal silica.
The samples were then etched with Kalling’s reagent no.
1 (ASTM 095) by swabbing for 30 s to reveal the micro-
structure. Kalling’s reagent no. 1 darkens martensite,
slightly colors ferrite, and does not attack austenite.
The microstructure was observed using an optical
microscope (Nikon Eclipse LV150) and a scanning elec-
tron microscope (JEOL-6400). All images on the opti-
cal microscope were taken at 50X magnification, and all
images in the SEM were taken at 500X magnification and
25 kV power.
Images collected using the optical microscope are
shown in Figs. 4 and 5. These two images represent
samples from Digital Metal and Innovative 3D Manu-
facturing, respectively. In addition, 55 images shared by
Digital Metal were obtained similarly as a result of the
company’s in-house testing, and a sample image from this
dataset is shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 3  Spots for microstructure
characterization in the tensile
specimens
245
Fig. 4  Image of etched sample from Digital Metal
Tensile Test Experiments
The samples in this study were prepared using the ASTM
Standard E8/E8M-16aϵ1 for mechanical tensile testing. Sub-
size specimens were produced at a thickness of 0.04–0.0595
inches, below the maximum thickness of 0.25 inches for
these samples. For five samples from Innovative 3D Manu-
facturing, these supports were attached to the gage section
of the specimens. Printing support structures that could not
be removed by hand were removed using a file. Three parts
had these removed (before measurement and testing) by fil-
ing, and two samples were tested with these supports still
attached, but they were found to not affect testing.
The samples were tested using a United Test Systems
10kN Universal Testing Machine according to ASTM
Standard E8/E8M-16aϵ1. A strain rate of 12.7 mm/min (0.5
inches/min) was used. An extensometer was used to track
the first 3% of engineering strain, and the rest was calcu-
lated using relations of total grip displacement and cross-
sectional area of gage and grip sections. The engineering
stress–strain curve of each test sample was obtained from the
output of the tensile testing system and then converted to the
true stress–strain curve to evaluate the sample’s mechanical
properties. The fitted linear line of elastic deformation was
13
246
Fig. 5  Image of etched sample from Innovative 3D Manufacturing
Fig. 6  Image of etched sample provided by Digital Metal
shifted to the right by a strain of 0.002 (0.2%), and its inter-
section with the true stress–strain curve was recognized as
the yield point, from which the yield strength was extracted.
In addition, the ultimate tensile strength and fracture strain
were extracted as the maximum values of the true stress and
strain, respectively. The fracture strain will be used as the
measure of ductility in this work. An example of mechanical
property extraction is shown in Fig. 7.
13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
Fig. 7  Mechanical property extraction from the stress–strain curve
Data‑Driven Modeling of Mechanical
Properties
Grain Morphological Feature Extraction
Processing of collected images was carried out using the
image processing software ImageJ with Fiji and MorphoLibJ
add-ons installed. All initial processing consisted of two
main steps: obtaining a scale factor to convert from pixels
to micrometers and obtaining watershed lines representative
of grain boundaries in the microstructure images. Processing
parameters vary greatly between images, and this process
must be iterated to achieve accurate grain boundary images.
As the goal of data processing is to obtain a histogram
of grain sizes, it is crucial to be able to convert all images
to the same scale. To obtain the scale factor, the straight-
line tool was used along with the “Measure” function. The
scale factor for laboratory-tested samples was 683 pixels
to 1000 µm, but the range of scales in this experiment var-
ied from 220 pixels to 10 µm in some images from Digital
Metal to 50 pixels to 100 µm in some images collected from
the literature. Generally, higher-resolution images improve
the software’s ability to accurately detect grains and draw
boundaries.
Watershed lines had to be generated to identify grain
boundaries in a manner that can be fed into a grain size his-
togram analysis. There are two methods applied to segment
images. The first step, which is applied to all image types, is
to convert to a grayscale 32-bit image format. Additionally,
the scale bars embedded in images were removed to elimi-
nate noise from grain boundary detection.
For non-EBSD images, the “Find Maxima” tool was used
for segmentation. This tool is used to draw boundaries about
specific regions whose brightness values differ from their
surroundings significantly enough to exceed allowable noise
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
tolerance. When utilized with optical microscope images
of material microstructures, a grain boundary map could
be developed. Iteration of this process is required to tune
parameters such as image contrast and noise tolerance to
obtain the most accurate segmentation possible.
For EBSD images, a different tool was used from the
MorphoLibJ plug-in. This plug-in’s Morphological Segmen-
tation menu can be used to preview boundaries and execute
segmentation. This is more effective when applied to EBSD
images because the Morphological Segmentation tool can
detect boundaries as brightness minima, and for this image
format, grain boundaries will appear darker than their sur-
roundings. Again, the process is iterative, and parameters
related to noise and contrast were adjusted such that an accu-
rate map of the grain structure is achieved.
The morphological characteristics (e.g., size, shape, and
orientation) of the grains formed during the AM process
have a fundamental impact on the mechanical properties
of fabricated parts. The Hall–Petch relationship states that
under the grain boundary strengthening effect, the material’s
yield strength reaches the maximum value at a certain grain
size (typically 10 nm). Then, as the grain size continues to
increase, the grain boundaries start to slide, and hence the
yield strength drops. The inverse relationship between yield
strength and the average grain size can be described by the
Hall–Petch equation [22]:
ky
𝜎y = 𝜎0 + √
d width in log scale were adopted to discretize the grain size.
where σy is the yield stress, σ0 and ky are constants specific
to each material, and d is the average grain diameter. How-
ever, only considering the average grain diameter may not
fully characterize the grain size effect and the probability
distribution of grain diameter should be more informative
[23]. In this work, to analyze the effect of grain size more
Fig. 8  Hall–Petch curve in log
scale and the selected grain size
bins
247
systematically, the histogram of grain diameter is extracted
as a set of morphological features, as opposed to only cal-
culating the mean grain diameter. The empirical Hall–Petch
constants of mild steel [22] (σ0 = 70 MPa, ky = 0.74 MPa/
m0.5) were adopted to sketch the Hall–Petch curve. Accord-
ing to the Hall–Petch effect, the yield strength is more sen-
sitive to grain size and thus the Hall–Petch curve is steeper
when the grain diameter is small, while the strength will
be nearly constant and the curve will be flat when the grain
diameter is large. This nonlinear effect of grain size could be
better addressed by converting both yield strength and grain
diameter to log scales. As shown in Fig. 8, on the Hall–Petch
curve in log scale (i.e., log(σy − σ0) vs. log(d)), the yield
strength log(σy − σ0) decreases linearly as the grain diameter
log(d) increases. Therefore, if the grain diameter bins in the
histogram are chosen uniformly in log scale, the expected
reduction in yield strength due to the Hall–Petch effect will
be the same in each bin. This strategy was adopted to select
the histogram bins.
To extract the grain size histogram, the area of each grain
and its equivalent diameter
√ by assuming the grain to be per-
fectly circular (i.e., 4∗Area
) was computed from the
𝜋
extracted grain boundaries. Throughout the whole 17-4 PH
steel dataset from both the literature and in-house testing,
the minimum grain diameter was found to be 0.37 µm and
most grains were below 100 µm with only a few above
100 µm. Therefore, a set of uniform histogram bins ranging
from − 0.5 (i.e., 0.316 µm) to 2 (i.e., 100 µm) with 0.25
In addition to these 10 uniform-width bins, a bin to account
for all the grains above 100 µm was also included. Then, the
probability of a grain falling into each bin was evaluated by
counting the frequencies of grain diameters to obtain the
histogram. For a microstructure image with recognized grain
boundaries, the probability of each histogram bin forms a
13
248
feature vector to characterize the Hall–Petch effect of grain
size. In Fig. 9, the grain size histogram by counting the
grains in the whole dataset is presented.
In addition to the grain size features from the histogram,
two grain shape features used to measure the circularity of
grains were also evaluated, which were the aspect ratio (the
ratio of major axis length to minor axis length, measured
from the ellipse that has the same normalized second central
moments as the grain region) and the ratio of grain perimeter
to diameter. For a perfect circular grain, these two ratios
should be 1 and 𝜋 , respectively. The motivation of using
these two features is that the presence of phases with differ-
ent grain shapes, such as the martensite phase with elongated
grains, will affect the mechanical properties and meanwhile
Fig. 9  Example histogram of the whole dataset
Fig. 10  Illustration of the circu-
larity features
13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
alter these two ratios. In Fig. 10, an elongated grain and a
near-circular grain are compared. As can be seen, the two
circularity features exhibited distinct values for these two
grains and thus provide grain shape information comple-
mentary to the grain size histogram. The correlation between
these circularity features and the variation of mechanical
properties could be learned by the data-driven model. In
total, there will be 13 grain morphological features extracted
for each microstructure image: the probabilities of a grain
falling into each of the 11 grain diameter histogram bins, the
mean aspect ratio averaged over all the grains on the image,
and the mean perimeter-to-diameter ratio.
Neural Network for Mechanical Property Prediction
Building a data-driven model to predict a target quantity
(mechanical property) based on a set of predictor features
(grain size, aspect ratio, etc.) is fundamentally a regres-
sion problem and can be done using a variety of supervised
machine learning models. There are a variety of ML mod-
els for regression problems, like an artificial neural net-
work, random forest, and support vector regression. With a
properly designed model structure, all these models could
achieve a good performance. Among these models, the arti-
ficial neural network is adopted in this work, owing to its
well-developed training technique, customizable model size,
and stable performance on various problems. Neural net-
works enable the learning of nonlinear relationships between
grain morphology and mechanical properties, which may
be actually more complex than the simple guideline of the
Hall–Petch equation and hence could not be well addressed
by simple models like linear regression.
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255 249

Considering that the number of data samples obtained
from the literature and tensile tests was limited, the data-
set was augmented by dividing each grain boundary image
extracted in “Grain morphological feature extraction” sec-
tion into a series of sub-images. A moving window with
50% overlapping in each moving step was used to crop sub-
images from each full microstructure image. Each sub-image
represented a sub-domain of the original sample and was
assigned with the same mechanical properties as the original
one. Grain morphological features were extracted for each
sub-image, i.e., when cropping images, if the centroid of a
recognized grain is located in the current cropping frame,
this grain will be counted in the grain size histogram of this
sub-image. This data augmentation process increased the
total number of data samples to about 5800, and each sample
consisted of the microstructure features extracted for a sub-
image and the corresponding mechanical properties. The
major advantage of this sub-imaging process is to generate
a sufficient number of datasets to train the neural networks
without requiring a very large number of image property
datasets, which could be very expensive and yet generate
necessary persistent excitation to warrant good training.
The predictive models in this work were built using sin-
gle-hidden layer feedforward neural networks, which could
learn to approximate any continuous nonlinear mapping
from input to output given a sufficient number of hidden
nodes. Since each mechanical property of interest would be
predicted, respectively, by an individual model, each neural
network would have 13 input variables (grain morphologi-
cal features) and a single output variable (the mechanical
property). Eleven of these inputs were obtained from grain
size histograms. As previously described, the histogram bin
values described the proportion of grains in a sample that
fell within a certain size range. Also included were features
to describe grain shape (aspect ratio and perimeter-to-diam-
eter ratio). The predicted properties considered in this work
were ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS),
and fracture strain. The statistics of the input and output
variables in the collected dataset are summarized in Table 3.
Since the data used for neural network modeling in this work
was collected from a wide range of literature and the in-
house testing of AM samples using different processes and
built in different directions, it is believed that the dataset is
representative of the additively manufactured 17-4 PH steels
in practice.
In this work, the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm was
used to develop training functions. This algorithm is strong
when applied to nonlinear prediction problems, and thus
it suits this application. Other methods such as the scaled
conjugate gradient algorithm and resilient backpropaga-
tion algorithm were tested, but none was as effective as the
Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. In tests conducted with 50
nodes, the LM algorithm far outpaced each of the alterna-
tives, as demonstrated in Table 4. The next most effective
was the resilient backpropagation algorithm, though none
was able to consistently produce a correlation coefficient
above 0.9 other than the LM algorithm.
After experimenting with the performance of UTS pre-
diction as the number of hidden nodes was varied, a feed-
forward neural network with 55 nodes was used. This net-
work achieved a reasonable root-mean-square error (RMSE)
without overfitting the data. Tests on the network were con-
ducted between 5 and 140 nodes at 5 node increments, and
performance was found to be stable between about 45 and
90 nodes when using the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm
as shown in Fig. 11. Ultimately, a value of 55 nodes was

Table 3  Summary of neural Variable Avg. level Std Range

network input and output
variables Input Probability in grain size bin#1 [0.31, 0.56] µm 4.62E−03 1.36E−02 [0, 1.30E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#2 [0.56, 1] µm 4.14E−02 8.43E−02 [0, 6.02E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#3 [1, 1.78] µm 9.64E−02 1.39E−01 [0, 6.48E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#4 [1.78, 3.16] µm 1.21E−01 1.33E−01 [0, 5.41E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#5 [3.16, 5.62] µm 1.60E−01 9.77E−02 [0, 6.06E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#6 [5.62, 10] µm 2.26E−01 1.47E−01 [0, 6.16E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#7 [10, 17.78] µm 2.05E−01 1.41E−01 [0, 6.21E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#8 [17.78, 31.62] µm 1.06E−01 1.01E−01 [0, 6.15E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#9 [31.62, 56.23] µm 3.59E−02 5.67E−02 [0, 4.26E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#10 [56.23, 100] µm 3.10E−03 8.92E−03 [0, 1.06E−01]
Probability in grain size bin#11 > 100 µm 1.95E−04 1.52E−03 [0, 3.33E−02]
Mean aspect ratio 1.96E+00 2.10E−01 [1.45E+00, 3.19E+00]
Mean perimeter to diameter ratio 3.79E+00 4.07E−01 [2.60E+00, 6.07E+00]
Output UTS 9.64E+02 1.26E+02 [7.44E+02, 1.41E+03]
Yield strength 7.53E+02 1.35E+02 [5.00E+02, 1.26E+03]
Fracture strain 6.34E−02 3.06E−02 [3.70E−02, 1.21E−01]

13
250 Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255

Table 4  Algorithm performance Algorithm 5 Nodes 10 Nodes 25 Nodes 50 Nodes 75 Nodes 100 Nodes
at selected node counts (full-
image validation R2) Levenberg–Marquardt 0.882 0.928 0.928 0.946 0.967 0.931
BFGS quasi-Newton 0.774 0.715 0.799 0.789 0.813 0.830
Resilient backpropagation 0.786 0.812 0.825 0.871 0.879 0.898
Scaled conjugate gradient 0.665 0.744 0.658 0.860 0.880 0.844
One-step secant 0.637 0.685 0.850 0.758 0.870 0.654

Fig. 11  Network performance using 5–140 nodes

selected as it was near the lower end of the reliably consist-
ent, stable region. This meant that using a value of 55 nodes
produced consistent results without the potential danger of
overfitting the model and harming performance. The metric
used to evaluate the number of nodes to be used was the R2
correlation between the predicted values and the UTS value
of the full images. Ultimately, the network’s performance
improved between this stage of development and when final
results were collected, but Fig. 11 contains some early per-
formance data that helped to motivate the selection of 55
nodes. The network size selected for UTS prediction was
also applied to the networks predicting other mechanical
properties, as they are all based on the same dataset and
microstructure features.
Results and Discussion
With the selected neural network structure, extracted fea-
tures, and measured (or extracted from the literature)
mechanical properties, three predictive models for the
ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), and
fracture strain were trained, respectively. The dataset aug-
mented with sub-image cropping was divided into training
and validation sets. To prevent data leakage, the dataset was
divided by physical samples, which means if a sample built
in “Physical sample preparation” section was selected for
validation, then all the sub-image data points originating
from this physical sample would be put into the validation
set. Thereby, the trained model will be validated on data
points from additively manufactured samples that have
been never seen by the training routine. The data points
from about 60% of physical samples were used for training,
and the data from the remaining 40% samples were used for
validation.
The prediction results of UTS by the trained neural net-
work are shown in Fig. 11 and Table 4. While the network
was trained by taking each sub-image as an individual data
point, its predictions were assessed in an aggregated way
because the mechanical properties should be more depend-
ent on the overall microstructure instead of the local ones in
sub-images. Two aggregation methods were employed: One
is to collect the predictions for all the cropped sub-images
belonging to the same physical sample and then calculate the
mean and standard deviation of sub-image predictions, and
the other is to directly use the predictions based on the fea-
tures extracted from the original full images without crop-
ping. As can be seen from Table 5, both the mean predic-
tions of sub-image and the full-image predictions achieved
excellent adjusted R2, root-mean-square error (RMSE), and

13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
Table 5  Predictive model Sub-image mean
performance for ultimate tensile
2
strength Adjusted R
Training 0.988
Validation N/A
mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). For the valida-
tion samples, only the full-image predictions were imple-
mented. The prediction accuracy on the validation samples
not used for training, though degraded slightly compared to
the training samples, was also quite good, which proved that
the UTS model built in this work does not only possess high
prediction accuracy but also exhibits good generalizability
to new data. In addition, it can be seen from Fig. 12 that the
confidence intervals formed based on the standard deviation
of sub-image predictions always enclosed the true measured
UTS values (the solid black line), which provided a quantifi-
cation of uncertainties associated with the UTS model. It is
worth noting that for some samples, the confidence intervals
appeared to be wide. This is mainly because the microstruc-
tures of these samples were inhomogeneous and thus their
cropped sub-images exhibited variant grain morphologies,
which made the sub-image predictions scattered. Neverthe-
less, the mean predictions of sub-images were less sensitive
to local variants and hence always stayed close to the true
UTS values. This is why the sub-image predictions should
be aggregated to report the overall mechanical properties.
Upon the success of UTS prediction, the same neu-
ral network structure and training method were applied
to the prediction of yield strength. As shown in Fig. 13
and Table 6, the performance of yield strength prediction
was still fairly good, though it degraded slightly compared
with the UTS prediction. The lower prediction accuracy
of yield strength is probably because the yield strength
measurement to label training samples was less accurate.
Fig. 12  Neural network prediction for ultimate tensile strength
251
Full image
RMSE (MPa) MAPE (%) Adjusted R2 RMSE (MPa) MAPE
18.8 1.24 0.982 23.1 1.81
N/A 2.60 0.949 30.9 2.67
In the stress–strain curve, locating the yield point was
more difficult than the UTS, as the latter was simply the
highest point of the true stress curve. Nevertheless, the
MAPE on the validation set was approximately 3.4% of the
yield strength magnitude, which still provides sufficient
accuracy to discern microstructures with different yield
strengths and assess the quality of AM fabricated parts.
Lastly, the prediction of fracture strain is shown in
Fig. 14 and Table 7. The fracture strain indicates when the
material breaks under tensile stress and hence measures
the ductility of the material. The fracture strain prediction
exhibited good accuracy on both training and validation
sets. Its R2 was better than that of yield strength, while its
MAPE was moderately larger. More importantly, similar
to the UTS prediction, the prediction accuracies of both
yield strength and fracture strain were fairly consistent
among training and validation sets. Considering that the
validation sets consisted of physical samples whose sub-
images were all excluded from training, this implies that
the predictive models of UTS, yield strength, and fracture
strain can be reliably generalized to new AM samples of
the 17-4H material. The exemplary generalizability was
achieved because the microstructure features, such as the
grain size histogram inspired by the Hall–Petch relation-
ship and the grain aspect ratio to capture the elongated
grains in the martensite phase, embraced the first-principle
knowledge of material mechanics. Therefore, the neural
networks in this work can be seen as data-driven fittings
of the generally applicable governing physics of materials,
13
252 Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255

Fig. 13  Neural network prediction for yield strength

Table 6  Predictive model Sub-image mean Full image

performance for yield strength
2
Adjusted R RMSE (MPa) MAPE (%) Adjusted R2 RMSE (MPa) MAPE (%)

Training 0.973 28.6 2.92 0.969 30.6 3.06

Validation N/A N/A 3.23 0.924 33.8 3.37

Fig. 14  Neural network prediction for fracture strain

Table 7  Predictive model Sub-image mean Full image

performance for fracture strain
2
Adjusted R RMSE MAPE (%) Adjusted R2 RMSE MAPE (%)

Training 0.980 0.0044 4.70 0.967 0.0057 6.93

Validation N/A N/A 8.17 0.949 0.0068 7.44

which are less prone to overfitting than the models con- supervised machine learning techniques available for pre-
structed from a pure data perspective. dictive regression problems. Several alternative modeling
While the above results are all based on feedforward neu- techniques were tested and are compared in Table 8. All the
ral networks with a single hidden layer, there are numerous tests were for the prediction of UTS, and the RMSE reported

13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255 253

Table 8  Performance of Model structure RMSE on validation

alternative models dataset (UTS data)
(MPa)

Baseline: neural network with one hidden layer (55 nodes) 41.70
Linear regression 87.25
Support vector machine with linear kernel 91.39
Support vector machine with Gaussian kernel 63.30
Support vector machine with cubic kernel 70.81
Random forest (size = 50) 44.63
Random forest (size = 100) 41.96
Neural network with two hidden layers (30/30 nodes) 41.61
Neural network with three hidden layers (20/20/20 nodes) 41.19

in Table 8 was evaluated using the sub-image data samples
in the validation datasets without applying the aggrega-
tion strategy, which is why the validation RMSE reported
for the baseline model was a bit higher than that with
full-image aggregation in Table 4. All the trainings were
repeated 10 times, and the average of RMSE was reported
for each model. As can be seen, the linear regression model
performed significantly worse than other machine learn-
ing models, because it could not capture the nonlinearity
between input variables and the final material properties.
Support vector machine (SVM) modeling, no matter what
type of kernel was used, was also unsuccessful compared to
neural networks, which indicates that SVM modeling was
not a suitable strategy for this application. For neural net-
works with two or three hidden layers, given that their num-
bers of hidden nodes were both approximately the same as
the baseline model, their performance did not exhibit notice-
able improvement by making the network deeper. Therefore,
the neural network with single hidden layer (i.e., the baseline
model) was preferable owing to its simpler structure. Finally,
random forest models were also shown to be powerful in
accurately predicting the UTS, as the random forest with
100 trees achieved the same level of RMSE as the baseline
model. Both the random forest and neural network strate-
gies were successful when applied to this dataset. Given
the nature of the present data, it makes sense that a random
forest could be an applicable model. That said, in the future,
as more comprehensive image data could be included in the
model with more complex relations between a larger number
of variables, a neural network would likely prove to be more
scalable.
To further evaluate the importance of adopted microstruc-
ture features, the Shapley values were calculated for each
feature and the neural network model of each mechanical
property. The Shapley value is a metric in game theory to
evaluate the relative contribution of each input predictor fea-
ture to the overall prediction [24]. The Shapley value is typi-
cally evaluated for a query point (i.e., each microstructure
data point), and it is a signed quantity whose magnitude of
contribution to the prediction of that query point is indicated
by its absolute value. In Table 9, the absolute Shapley values
averaged over all the full-image samples are presented to
compare the overall importance of the microstructure fea-
tures for each of the three mechanical properties. A larger
Shapley value in Table 9 indicates the feature that has a
higher impact on the prediction of corresponding mechani-
cal property. The three most important features for each
mechanical property are also highlighted in Table 9. As
expected, the probabilities in grain size bins with lower grain
diameter and the grain aspect ratio feature had higher contri-
butions. As shown in Fig. 9, most of the grains fall into the
1 to 17.78 µm range and the Hall–Petch curve is steeper in
the low grain diameter range, and, therefore, the mechani-
cal properties should be more sensitive to the probabilities
in the bins from 1 to 17.78 µm. In addition, the grain aspect
ratio feature implicitly encodes phase information into neu-
ral network models (i.e., a higher fraction of martensite
phase yields a higher grain aspect ratio, higher strength, and
lower fracture strain). Therefore, it can be concluded that the
observation of feature relative importance matches with the
expectation based on the knowledge of material mechanics,
which is another advantage of using interpretable physics-
inspired features in data-driven predictive models.
Conclusions
In this paper, data-driven models based on microstructure
attributes were established to predict the mechanical prop-
erties of 17-4H stainless steel material built by additive
manufacturing. Predictions were based upon data from three
sources: in-house tensile testing and imaging, available lit-
erature, and additive manufacturing company, Digital Metal
and Innovative 3D Manufacturing. By utilizing grain size
and shape characteristics derived from images, ANNs were

13
254 Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255

Table 9  Evaluation of the Input feature Shapley value Shapley value Shapley value
importance of input features to for UTS (MPa) for yield strength for fracture
neural networks (MPa) strain

Probability in grain size bin#1 [0.31, 0.56] µm 5.160127 25.00539 1.61E−03

Probability in grain size bin#2 [0.56, 1] µm 23.21459 0.311903 3.75E−03
Probability in grain size bin#3 [1, 1.78] µm 35.36107 13.56977 1.07E−02
Probability in grain size bin#4 [1.78, 3.16] µm 62.60749 6.220818 1.03E−02
Probability in grain size bin#5 [3.16, 5.62] µm 19.8183 5.504887 6.56E−03
Probability in grain size bin#6 [5.62, 10] µm 27.9357 3.328806 9.01E−03
Probability in grain size bin#7 [10, 17.78] µm 17.73263 23.57832 2.06E−02
Probability in grain size bin#8 [17.78, 31.62] µm 19.65028 17.67157 5.24E−03
Probability in grain size bin#9 [31.62, 56.23] µm 11.36135 15.84337 4.47E−03
Probability in grain size bin#10 [56.23, 100] µm 1.875369 4.515326 3.59E−04
Probability in grain size bin#11 > 100 µm 1.427833 0.490937 3.26E−04
Mean aspect ratio 21.67412 33.6412 2.32E−03
Mean perimeter-to-diameter ratio 7.51172 9.634381 5.06E−03

Absolute Shapley values averaged for all the full-image samples, larger values indicating higher contribu-
tion to ANN predictions. Bold: the top three features for each mechanical property

utilized to derive relationships between said characteristics References

and tensile properties observed in testing.
Results were encouraging across three different tensile
properties. For ultimate tensile strength, the model was able
to predict within an average error of 30 MPa of the true
value (3.1% of mean true UTS value). For yield strength,
this prediction was on average within 33 MPa of the true
value (4.5% of the mean true YS value). Finally, for fracture
strength, predicted values matched observed values within
an average of 0.7% elongation in comparison with true val-
ues (11% magnitude of true FS). Also, all predictions fell
within quantified confidence intervals. These results indi-
cated that all the established predictive models of mechani-
cal properties exhibited practical accuracy and reliability.
The key strength of this approach is the model’s general-
izability. By forming linkages between microstructures and
properties, the process utilized in part manufacturing can
be generalized. As such, this method can incorporate data
from samples built by many methods, both AM and tradi-
tional, and the inclusion of a wider variety of manufacturing
processes could even enhance the accuracy and reliability
of its predictions. This procedure could also be adapted to a
wider variety of metals for similar results or exposed to data
from more sources to improve upon predictive capabilities.
Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the tensile
specimens and microstructural images provided by the Digital Metals
and Innovative 3D Manufacturing during this study. During this study,
all the experimental work was supported by the Donald A. & Nancy G.
Roach Professorship at Purdue University.
Declarations
10. Lu L, Dao M, Kumar P, Ramamurty U, Karniadakis GE, Suresh S
Conflict of interest The authors have no conflict of interest.
1. Tenner J, Linkens DA, Morris PF, Bailey TJ (2001) Prediction
of mechanical properties in steel heat treatment process using
neural networks. Ironmak Steelmak 28(1):15–22. https://​doi.​org/​
10.​1179/​irs.​2001.​28.1.​15
2. Sterjovski Z, Nolan D, Carpenter KR, Dunne DP, Norrish J (2005)
Artificial neural networks for modelling the mechanical proper-
ties of steels in various applications. J Mater Process Technol
170(3):536–544. https://d​ oi.o​ rg/1​ 0.1​ 016/j.j​ matpr​ otec.2​ 005.0​ 5.0​ 40
3. DebRoy T, Mukherjee T, Wei HL, Elmer JW, Milewski JO (2020)
Metallurgy, mechanistic models and machine learning in metal
printing. Nat Rev Mater 6(1):48–68. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1038/​
s41578-​020-​00236-1
4. Popova E, Rodgers TM, Gong X, Cecen A, Madison JD, Kalidindi
SR (2017) Process-structure linkages using a data science
approach: application to simulated additive manufacturing data.
Integr Mater Manuf Innov 6(1):54–68. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​
s40192-​017-​0088-1
5. Herriot C, Spear AD (2020) Predicting microstructure-dependent
mechanical properties in additively manufactured metals with
machine- and deep-learning methods. Comput Mater Sci. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​comma​tsci.​2020.​109599
6. Wan HY, Chen GF, Li CP, Qi XB, Zhang GP (2019) Data-driven
evaluation of fatigue performance of additive manufactured parts
using miniature specimens. J Mater Sci Technol 35(6):1137–1146.
https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​jmst.​2018.​12.​011
7. Yang Z, Yu C-H, Buehler MJ (2021) Deep learning model to
predict complex stress and strain fields in hierarchical composites.
Sci Adv. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1126/​sciadv.​abd74​16
8. Bayraktar Ö, Uzun G, Çakiroğlu R, Guldas A (2017) Experi-
mental study on the 3D-printed plastic parts and predicting the
mechanical properties using artificial neural networks. Polym Adv
Technol 28(8):1044–1051. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1002/​pat.​3960
9. Xie X, Bennett J, Saha S, Lu Y, Cao J, Liu WK, Gan Z (2021)
Mechanistic data-driven prediction of as-built mechanical proper-
ties in metal additive manufacturing. npj Comput Mater. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1038/​s41524-​021-​00555-z
(2020) Extraction of mechanical properties of materials through

13
Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation (2022) 11:241–255
deep learning from instrumented indentation. Proc Natl Acad Sci
117(13):7052–7062. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1073/​pnas.​19222​10117
11. Yan W, Lian Y, Yu C, Kafka OL, Liu Z, Liu WK, Wagner GJ
(2018) An integrated process–structure–property modeling frame-
work for additive manufacturing. Comput Methods Appl Mech
Eng 339(1):184–204. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​cma.​2018.​05.​004
12. Gao W, Zhang Y, Ramanujan D, Ramani K, Chen Y, Williams CB,
Wang CCL, Shin YC, Zhang S, Zavattieri PD (2015) The status,
challenges, and future of additive manufacturing in engineering.
Comput-Aided Des 69(1):65–89. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​cad.​
2015.​04.​001
13. Yadollahi A, Shamsaei N, Thompson SM, Elwany A, Bian L
(2015) mechanical and microstructural properties of selective
laser melted 17-4 PH stainless steel. In: Proceedings of the ASME
2015 international mechanical engineering congress and exposi-
tion, 2A(1). https://​doi.​org/​10.​1115/​imece​2015-​52362
14. Rafi HK, Pal D, Patil N, Starr TL, Stucker BE (2014) Microstruc-
ture and mechanical behavior of 17-4 precipitation hardenable
steel processed by selective laser melting. J Mater Eng Perform
23(12):4421–4428. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s11665-​014-​1226-y
15. Yadollahi A, Mahmoudi M, Elwany A, Doude H, Bian L, New-
man JC (2020) Effects of crack orientation and heat treatment on
fatigue-crack-growth behavior of AM 17-4 PH stainless steel. Eng
Fract Mech. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​engfr​acmech.​2020.​106874
16. Pasebani S, Ghayoor M, Badwe S, Irrinki H, Atre SV (2018)
Effects of atomizing media and post processing on mechanical
properties of 17-4 PH stainless steel manufactured via selective
laser melting. Addit Manuf 22(1):127–137. https://​doi.​org/​10.​
1016/j.​addma.​2018.​05.​011
17. Hsu TH, Chang YJ, Huang CY, Yen HW, Chen CP, Jen KK,
Yeh AC (2019) Microstructure and property of a selective laser
View publication stats
255
melting process induced oxide dispersion strengthened 17-4 PH
stainless steel. J Alloy Compd 803(1):30–41. https://​doi.​org/​10.​
1016/j.​jallc​om.​2019.​06.​289
18. Mahmoudi M, Elwany A, Yadollahi A, Thompson SM, Bian L,
Shamsaei N (2017) Mechanical properties and microstructural
characterization of selective laser melted 17-4 PH stainless
steel. Rapid Prototyp J 23(2):280–294. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1108/​
rpj-​12-​2015-​0192
19. Alnajjar M, Christien F, Bosch C, Wolski K (2020) A comparative
study of microstructure and hydrogen embrittlement of selective
laser melted and wrought 17–4 PH stainless steel. Mater Sci Eng
A. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​msea.​2020.​139363
20. Yadollahi A, Shamsaei N, Thompson SM, Elwany A, Bian L
(2017) Effects of building orientation and heat treatment on
fatigue behavior of selective laser melted 17–4 PH stainless steel.
Int J Fatigue 94(1):218–235. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​ijfat​igue.​
2016.​03.​014
21. Wang X, Liu Y, Shi T, Wang Y (2020) Strain rate dependence of
mechanical property in a selective laser melted 17–4 PH stainless
steel with different states. Mater Sci Eng A. https://​doi.​org/​10.​
1016/j.​msea.​2020.​139776
22. Callister WD (2000) Fundamentals of materials science and engi-
neering, vol 471660817. Wiley, London
23. Raeisinia B, Poole WJ (2011) Modelling the elastic–plastic transi-
tion of polycrystalline metals with a distribution of grain sizes.
Modell Simul Mater Sci Eng 20(1):015015. https://​doi.​org/​10.​
1088/​0965-​0393/​20/1/​015015
24. Kumar IE, Venkatasubramanian S, Scheidegger C, Friedler S
(2020) Problems with Shapley-value-based explanations as feature
importance measures. In: International conference on machine
learning. PMLR, pp 5491–5500
13