Data-Driven Transition Models for Aeronautical Flows with a High-Order Numerical Method

Abstract

Over the past years, there has been innovative ideas about data-driven turbulence modeling proposed by scholars all over the world. This paper is a continuity of these significant efforts, with the aim of offering a better representation for turbulence physics. Previous works mainly focus on turbulence viscosity or Reynolds stress, while there are few works for turbulence transition. In our work, two mapping functions between average flow parameters and transition intermittency, a virtual physical quantity describing the amount of turbulence at a given position, are refactored, respectively, with neuron networks and random forests. These two functions are then coupled with the Spalart–Allmaras (SA) model to reconstitute two models for transition prediction. To demonstrate that these two coupled models provide improved prediction accuracy on transition compared with previous SA models, we conduct test cases all under a high-order weighted compact nonlinear scheme (WCNS). The prediction results of both coupled models significantly improved the capture of natural transitions occurring in the flows. Furthermore, the interpolation generalisation and extrapolation generalisation abilities of the coupled models are also demonstrated in this paper. The results emphasize the potential for machine learning as a supplementary in turbulence transition modeling.