Model Order Reduction with Neural Networks: Application to Laminar and Turbulent Flows

We investigate the capability of neural network-based model order reduction, i.e., autoencoder (AE), for fluid flows. As an example model, an AE which comprises of convolutional neural networks and multi-layer perceptrons is considered in this study. The AE model is assessed with four canonical fluid flows, namely: (1) two-dimensional cylinder wake, (2) its transient process, (3) NOAA sea surface temperature, and (4) a cross-sectional field of turbulent channel flow, in terms of a number of latent modes, the choice of nonlinear activation functions, and the number of weights contained in the AE model. We find that the AE models are sensitive to the choice of the aforementioned parameters depending on the target flows. Finally, we foresee the extensional applications and perspectives of machine learning based order reduction for numerical and experimental studies in the fluid dynamics community.