Modeling of Mechanical Properties of Clay-Reinforced Polymer Nanocomposites Using Deep Neural Network.

Due to the non-linear characteristics of the processing parameters, predicting the desired properties of nanocomposites using the conventional regression approach is often unsatisfactory. Thus, it is essential to use a machine learning approach to determine the optimum processing parameters. In this study, a backpropagation deep neural network (DNN) with nanoclay and compatibilizer content, and processing parameters as input, was developed to predict the mechanical properties, including tensile modulus and tensile strength, of clay-reinforced polyethylene nanocomposites. The high accuracy of the developed model proves that DNN can be used as an efficient tool for predicting mechanical properties of the nanocomposites in terms of four independent parameters.