Chih Wei Chang
Graduate Student
Nuclear Engineering Department
North Carolina State University

Abstract

Thermal fluid processes are inherently multi-physics and multi-scale, involving mass-momentum-energy transport phenomena at multiple scales. Thermal fluid simulation (TFS) is based on solving conservative equations, for which – except for “first-principles” direct numerical simulation – closure relations (CRs) are required to provide microscopic interactions or so-called sub-grid-scale physics. In practice, TFS is realized through reduced-order modeling, and its CRs as low-fidelity models can be informed by observations and data from relevant and adequately evaluated experiments and high-fidelity simulations. This talk is focused on data-driven TFS models, specifically on their development using machine learning (ML). Five ML frameworks are introduced including physics-separated ML (PSML or Type I ML), physics-evaluated ML (PEML or Type II ML), physics-integrated ML (PIML or Type III ML), physics-recovered (PRML or Type IV ML), and physics-discovered ML (PDML or Type V ML). The frameworks vary in their performance for different applications depending on the level of knowledge of governing physics, source, type, amount and quality of available data for training. Notably, outlined for the first time in this research, Type III models present stringent requirements on modeling, substantial computing resources for training, and high potential in extracting value from “big data” in thermal fluid research.