Local neural operator for solving transient partial differential equations on varied domains
This addresses the inefficiency of neural networks for PDE solving in practical applications like fluid dynamics, offering a domain-agnostic approach with substantial speed-ups.
The authors tackled the problem of solving transient partial differential equations (PDEs) on varied domains by proposing a local neural operator (LNO) with boundary treatments, enabling one pre-trained model to predict solutions on different domains, resulting in about 1000× faster calculations than conventional finite element methods for fluid flow across airfoil cascades.
Artificial intelligence (AI) shows great potential to reduce the huge cost of solving partial differential equations (PDEs). However, it is not fully realized in practice as neural networks are defined and trained on fixed domains and boundaries. Herein, we propose local neural operator (LNO) for solving transient PDEs on varied domains. It comes together with a handy strategy including boundary treatments, enabling one pre-trained LNO to predict solutions on different domains. For demonstration, LNO learns Navier-Stokes equations from randomly generated data samples, and then the pre-trained LNO is used as an explicit numerical time-marching scheme to solve the flow of fluid on unseen domains, e.g., the flow in a lid-driven cavity and the flow across the cascade of airfoils. It is about 1000$\times$ faster than the conventional finite element method to calculate the flow across the cascade of airfoils. The solving process with pre-trained LNO achieves great efficiency, with significant potential to accelerate numerical calculations in practice.