Using Parametric PINNs for Predicting Internal and External Turbulent Flows
This work addresses the need for efficient surrogate models in computational fluid dynamics for engineers and researchers, though it is incremental as it builds on an existing PINN framework.
The paper tackled the computational cost of simulating turbulent flows by extending a physics-informed neural network (PINN) framework to predict internal and external flows, achieving accurate predictions for two representative scenarios with a novel sampling approach to ensure training convergence.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers employing two-equation eddy viscosity models are the industry standard for simulating turbulent flows using the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) formulation. While these methods are computationally less expensive than direct numerical simulations, they can still incur significant computational costs to achieve the desired accuracy. In this context, physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) offer a promising approach for developing parametric surrogate models that leverage both existing, but limited CFD solutions and the governing differential equations to predict simulation outcomes in a computationally efficient, differentiable, and near real-time manner. In this work, we build upon the previously proposed RANS-PINN framework, which only focused on predicting flow over a cylinder. To investigate the efficacy of RANS-PINN as a viable approach to building parametric surrogate models, we investigate its accuracy in predicting relevant turbulent flow variables for both internal and external flows. To ensure training convergence with a more complex loss function, we adopt a novel sampling approach that exploits the domain geometry to ensure a proper balance among the contributions from various regions within the solution domain. The effectiveness of this framework is then demonstrated for two scenarios that represent a broad class of internal and external flow problems.