Xinlun Cheng

Xinlun Cheng, Joseph Choi, H. S. Udaykumar et al.

We present MRPARCv2, Multi-resolution Physics-Aware Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network, designed to model complex flows by embedding the structure of advection-diffusion-reaction equations and leveraging a multi-resolution architecture. MRPARCv2 introduces hierarchical discretization and cross-resolution feature communication to improve the accuracy and efficiency of flow simulations. We evaluate the model on a challenging 2D turbulent radiative layer dataset from The Well multi-physics benchmark repository and demonstrate significant improvements when compared to the single resolution baseline model, in both Variance Scaled Root Mean Squared Error and physics-driven metrics, including turbulent kinetic energy spectra and mass-temperature distributions. Despite having 30% fewer trainable parameters, MRPARCv2 outperforms its predecessor by up to 50% in roll-out prediction error and 86% in spectral error. A preliminary study on uncertainty quantification was performed, and we also analyzed the model's performance under different levels of abstractions of the flow, specifically on sampling subsets of field variables. We find that the absence of physical constraints on the equation of state (EOS) in the network architecture leads to degraded accuracy. A variable substitution experiment confirms that this issue persists regardless of which physical quantity is predicted directly. Our findings highlight the advantages of multi-resolution inductive bias for capturing multi-scale flow dynamics and suggest the need for future PIML models to embed EOS knowledge to enhance physical fidelity.

Phong C. H. Nguyen, Xinlun Cheng, Shahab Azarfar et al.

Modeling unsteady, fast transient, and advection-dominated physics problems is a pressing challenge for physics-aware deep learning (PADL). The physics of complex systems is governed by large systems of partial differential equations (PDEs) and ancillary constitutive models with nonlinear structures, as well as evolving state fields exhibiting sharp gradients and rapidly deforming material interfaces. Here, we investigate an inductive bias approach that is versatile and generalizable to model generic nonlinear field evolution problems. Our study focuses on the recent physics-aware recurrent convolutions (PARC), which incorporates a differentiator-integrator architecture that inductively models the spatiotemporal dynamics of generic physical systems. We extend the capabilities of PARC to simulate unsteady, transient, and advection-dominant systems. The extended model, referred to as PARCv2, is equipped with differential operators to model advection-reaction-diffusion equations, as well as a hybrid integral solver for stable, long-time predictions. PARCv2 is tested on both standard benchmark problems in fluid dynamics, namely Burgers and Navier-Stokes equations, and then applied to more complex shock-induced reaction problems in energetic materials. We evaluate the behavior of PARCv2 in comparison to other physics-informed and learning bias models and demonstrate its potential to model unsteady and advection-dominant dynamics regimes.

Xinlun Cheng, Bingzhe Chen, Joseph Choi et al.

Modeling shock-to-detonation phenomena in energetic materials (EMs) requires capturing complex physical processes such as strong shocks, rapid changes in microstructural morphology, and nonlinear dynamics of chemical reaction fronts. These processes participate in energy localization at hotspots, which initiate chemical energy release leading to detonation. This study addresses the formation of hotspots in crystalline EMs subjected to weak-to-moderate shock loading, which, despite its critical relevance to the safe storage and handling of EMs, remains underexplored compared to the well-studied strong shock conditions. To overcome the computational challenges associated with direct numerical simulations, we advance the Physics-Aware Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network (PARCv2), which has been shown to be capable of predicting strong shock responses in EMs. We improved the architecture of PARCv2 to rapidly predict shear localizations and plastic heating, which play important roles in the weak-to-moderate shock regime. PARCv2 is benchmarked against two widely used physics-informed models, namely, Fourier neural operator and neural ordinary differential equation; we demonstrate its superior performance in capturing the spatiotemporal dynamics of shear band formation. While all models exhibit certain failure modes, our findings underscore the importance of domain-specific considerations in developing robust AI-accelerated simulation tools for reactive materials.