Numerical Approximation in CFD Problems Using Physics Informed Machine Learning
This addresses computational bottlenecks in CFD for engineers and researchers, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing physics-informed methods.
The thesis tackles the challenge of solving advection-dominant CFD problems with low computational cost by proposing a Distributed Physics Informed Neural Network (DPINN) method, which splits domains and adds physics-based constraints to overcome limitations of existing approaches. It achieves very accurate results on steady advection-diffusion and unsteady square pulse problems, with an ELM-based variant performing better and providing non-iterative solutions.
The thesis focuses on various techniques to find an alternate approximation method that could be universally used for a wide range of CFD problems but with low computational cost and low runtime. Various techniques have been explored within the field of machine learning to gauge the utility in fulfilling the core ambition. Steady advection diffusion problem has been used as the test case to understand the level of complexity up to which a method can provide solution. Ultimately, the focus stays over physics informed machine learning techniques where solving differential equations is possible without any training with computed data. The prevalent methods by I.E. Lagaris et.al. and M. Raissi et.al are explored thoroughly. The prevalent methods cannot solve advection dominant problems. A physics informed method, called as Distributed Physics Informed Neural Network (DPINN), is proposed to solve advection dominant problems. It increases the lexibility and capability of older methods by splitting the domain and introducing other physics-based constraints as mean squared loss terms. Various experiments are done to explore the end to end possibilities with the method. Parametric study is also done to understand the behavior of the method to different tunable parameters. The method is tested over steady advection-diffusion problems and unsteady square pulse problems. Very accurate results are recorded. Extreme learning machine (ELM) is a very fast neural network algorithm at the cost of tunable parameters. The ELM based variant of the proposed model is tested over the advection-diffusion problem. ELM makes the complex optimization simpler and Since the method is non-iterative, the solution is recorded in a single shot. The ELM based variant seems to work better than the simple DPINN method. Simultaneously scope for various development in future are hinted throughout the thesis.