Designing expert system with artificial neural networks for in situ toughened Si3N4

Artificial neural networks (ANN) were applied to develop an in situ toughened Si3N4 expert design system in this paper. Mainly depending on experiments and tests, traditional research in materials science is costly and time-consuming. ANN belongs to a new kind of artificial intelligence technique, which can surmount difficulties in data analysis and model development, so it is suitable for non-linear and unstructured information processing in materials research. Four ANN models were developed to reciprocally predict the microstructure, sintering processing and mechanical properties of this material. Software with user-friendly graphical interface was developed with matlab language, which can help to easily and quickly realize the applications mentioned above.