Kurt Maute

Hernan Villanueva, Kurt Maute

This paper studies the characteristics and applicability of the CutFEM approach as the core of a robust topology optimization framework for 3D laminar incompressible flow and species transport problems at low Reynolds number (Re < 200). CutFEM is a methodology for discretizing partial differential equations on complex geometries by immersed boundary techniques. In this study, the geometry of the fluid domain is described by an explicit level set method, where the parameters of a level set function are defined as functions of the optimization variables. The fluid behavior is modeled by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Species transport is modeled by an advection-diffusion equation. The governing equations are discretized in space by a generalized extended finite element method. Face-oriented ghost-penalty terms are added for stability reasons and to improve the conditioning of the system. The boundary conditions are enforced weakly via Nit\-sc\-he's method. The emergence of isolated volumes of fluid surrounded by solid during the optimization process leads to a singular analysis problem. An auxiliary indicator field is modeled to identify these volumes and to impose a constraint on the average pressure. Numerical results for 3D, steady-state and transient problems demonstrate that the CutFEM analyses are sufficiently accurate, and the optimized designs agree well with results from prior studies solved in 2D or by density approaches.

Subhayan De, Jerrad Hampton, Kurt Maute et al.

Topology optimization under uncertainty (TOuU) often defines objectives and constraints by statistical moments of geometric and physical quantities of interest. Most traditional TOuU methods use gradient-based optimization algorithms and rely on accurate estimates of the statistical moments and their gradients, e.g., via adjoint calculations. When the number of uncertain inputs is large or the quantities of interest exhibit large variability, a large number of adjoint (and/or forward) solves may be required to ensure the accuracy of these gradients. The optimization procedure itself often requires a large number of iterations, which may render TOuU computationally expensive, if not infeasible. To tackle this difficulty, we here propose an optimization approach that generates a stochastic approximation of the objective, constraints, and their gradients via a small number of adjoint (and/or forward) solves, per iteration. A statistically independent (stochastic) approximation of these quantities is generated at each optimization iteration. The total cost of this approach is only a small factor larger than that of the corresponding deterministic TO problem. We incorporate the stochastic approximation of objective, constraints and their design sensitivities into two classes of optimization algorithms. First, we investigate the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method and a number of its variants, which have been successfully applied to large-scale optimization problems for machine learning. Second, we study the use of the proposed stochastic approximation approach within conventional nonlinear programming methods, focusing on the Globally Convergent Method of Moving Asymptotes (GCMMA). The performance of these algorithms is investigated with structural design optimization problems utilizing a Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP), as well as an explicit level set method.

Conor Rowan, Kai Hampleman, Kurt Maute et al.

Since their advent nearly a decade ago, physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) have been studied extensively as a novel technique for solving forward and inverse problems in physics and engineering. The neural network discretization of the solution field is naturally adaptive and avoids meshing the computational domain, which can both improve the accuracy of the numerical solution and streamline implementation. However, there have been limited studies of PINNs on complex three-dimensional geometries, as the lack of mesh and the reliance on the strong form of the partial differential equation (PDE) make boundary condition (BC) enforcement challenging. Techniques to enforce BCs with PINNs have proliferated in the literature, but a comprehensive side-by-side comparison of these techniques and a study of their efficacy on geometrically complex three-dimensional test problems are lacking. In this work, we i) systematically compare BC enforcement techniques for PINNs, ii) propose a general solution framework for arbitrary three-dimensional geometries, and iii) verify the methodology on three-dimensional, linear and nonlinear test problems with combinations of Dirichlet, Neumann, and Robin boundaries. Our approach is agnostic to the underlying PDE, the geometry of the computational domain, and the nature of the BCs, while requiring minimal hyperparameter tuning. This work represents a step in the direction of establishing PINNs as a mature numerical method, capable of competing head-to-head with incumbents such as the finite element method.

Grant Norman, Conor Rowan, Kurt Maute et al.

In this work, we investigate the use of data-driven equation discovery for dynamical systems to model and forecast continuous-time dynamics of unconstrained optimization problems. To avoid expensive evaluations of the objective function and its gradient, we leverage trajectory data on the optimization variables to learn the continuous-time dynamics associated with gradient descent, Newton's method, and ADAM optimization. The discovered gradient flows are then solved as a surrogate for the original optimization problem. To this end, we introduce the Learned Gradient Flow (LGF) optimizer, which is equipped to build surrogate models of variable polynomial order in full- or reduced-dimensional spaces at user-defined intervals in the optimization process. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach on several standard problems from engineering mechanics and scientific machine learning, including two inverse problems, structural topology optimization, and two forward solves with different discretizations. Our results suggest that the learned gradient flows can significantly expedite convergence by capturing critical features of the optimization trajectory while avoiding expensive evaluations of the objective and its gradient.

Conor Rowan, John Evans, Kurt Maute et al.

From characterizing the speed of a thermal system's response to computing natural modes of vibration, eigenvalue analysis is ubiquitous in engineering. In spite of this, eigenvalue problems have received relatively little treatment compared to standard forward and inverse problems in the physics-informed machine learning literature. In particular, neural network discretizations of solutions to eigenvalue problems have seen only a handful of studies. Owing to their nonlinearity, neural network discretizations prevent the conversion of the continuous eigenvalue differential equation into a standard discrete eigenvalue problem. In this setting, eigenvalue analysis requires more specialized techniques. Using a neural network discretization of the eigenfunction, we show that a variational form of the eigenvalue problem called the "Rayleigh quotient" in tandem with a Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure is a particularly simple and robust approach to find the eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenfunctions. This method is shown to be useful for finding sets of harmonic functions on irregular domains, parametric and nonlinear eigenproblems, and high-dimensional eigenanalysis. We also discuss the utility of harmonic functions as a spectral basis for approximating solutions to partial differential equations. Through various examples from engineering mechanics, the combination of the Rayleigh quotient objective, Gram-Schmidt procedure, and the neural network discretization of the eigenfunction is shown to offer unique advantages for handling continuous eigenvalue problems.

Conor Rowan, Kurt Maute, Alireza Doostan

One use case of ``physics-informed neural networks'' (PINNs) is solution reconstruction, which aims to estimate the full-field state of a physical system from sparse measurements. Parameterized governing equations of the system are used in tandem with the measurements to regularize the regression problem. However, in real-world solution reconstruction problems, the parameterized governing equation may be inconsistent with the physical phenomena that give rise to the measurement data. We show that due to assuming consistency between the true and parameterized physics, PINNs-based approaches may fail to satisfy three basic criteria of interpretability, robustness, and data consistency. As we argue, these criteria ensure that (i) the quality of the reconstruction can be assessed, (ii) the reconstruction does not depend strongly on the choice of physics loss, and (iii) that in certain situations, the physics parameters can be uniquely recovered. In the context of elasticity and heat transfer, we demonstrate how standard formulations of the physics loss and techniques for constraining the solution to respect the measurement data lead to different ``constraint forces" -- which we define as additional source terms arising from the constraints -- and that these constraint forces can significantly influence the reconstructed solution. To avoid the potentially substantial influence of the choice of physics loss and method of constraint enforcement on the reconstructed solution, we propose the ``explicit constraint force method'' (ECFM) to gain control of the source term introduced by the constraint. We then show that by satisfying the criteria of interpretability, robustness, and data consistency, this approach leads to more predictable and customizable reconstructions from noisy measurement data, even when the parameterization of the missing physics is inconsistent with the measured system.

Aaron Allred, Lauren J. Abbott, Alireza Doostan et al.

A new, machine learning-based approach for automatically generating 3D digital geometries of woven composite textiles is proposed to overcome the limitations of existing analytical descriptions and segmentation methods. In this approach, panoptic segmentation is leveraged to produce instance segmented semantic masks from X-ray computed tomography (CT) images. This effort represents the first deep learning based automated process for segmenting unique yarn instances in a woven composite textile. Furthermore, it improves on existing methods by providing instance-level segmentation on low contrast CT datasets. Frame-to-frame instance tracking is accomplished via an intersection-over-union (IoU) approach adopted from video panoptic segmentation for assembling a 3D geometric model. A corrective recognition algorithm is developed to improve the recognition quality (RQ). The panoptic quality (PQ) metric is adopted to provide a new universal evaluation metric for reconstructed woven composite textiles. It is found that the panoptic segmentation network generalizes well to new CT images that are similar to the training set but does not extrapolate well to CT images of differing geometry, texture, and contrast. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by capturing yarn flow directions, contact regions between individual yarns, and the spatially varying cross-sectional areas of the yarns.

Mohammad Hadigol, Kurt Maute, Alireza Doostan

In this work, a stochastic, physics-based model for Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is presented in order to study the effects of parametric model uncertainties on the cell capacity, voltage, and concentrations. To this end, the proposed uncertainty quantification (UQ) approach, based on sparse polynomial chaos expansions, relies on a small number of battery simulations. Within this UQ framework, the identification of most important uncertainty sources is achieved by performing a global sensitivity analysis via computing the so-called Sobol' indices. Such information aids in designing more efficient and targeted quality control procedures, which consequently may result in reducing the LIB production cost. An LiC$_6$/LiCoO$_2$ cell with 19 uncertain parameters discharged at 0.25C, 1C and 4C rates is considered to study the performance and accuracy of the proposed UQ approach. The results suggest that, for the considered cell, the battery discharge rate is a key factor affecting not only the performance variability of the cell, but also the determination of most important random inputs.