Convolutional neural networks for compressible turbulent flow reconstruction

Abstract

This paper investigates deep learning methods in the framework of convolutional neural networks for reconstructing compressible turbulent flow fields. The aim is to develop methods capable of up-scaling coarse turbulent data into fine-resolution images. The method is based on a parallel computational framework that accepts five image sets of various resolutions, trained to correspond to the respective fine resolution. The network architecture mainly consists of convolutional layers, constructing an encoder/decoder network. Based on the U-Net scheme, three different implementations are presented, with residual and skip connections. The methods are implemented in a supersonic shock-boundary-layer interaction problem. The results suggest that simple networks perform better when trained on limited data, and this can be a practical and fast solution when dealing with turbulent flow data, where the computational burden is most of the time difficult to decrease. In such a way, a coarse simulation grid can be upscaled to a fine grid.