NSFnets (Navier-Stokes flow nets): Physics-informed neural networks for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations

Abstract

We employ physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) to simulate the incompressible flows ranging from laminar to turbulent flows. We perform PINN simulations by considering two different formulations of the Navier-Stokes equations: the velocity-pressure (VP) formulation and the vorticity-velocity (VV) formulation. We refer to these specific PINNs for the Navier-Stokes flow nets as NSFnets. Analytical solutions and direct numerical simulation (DNS) databases provide proper initial and boundary conditions for the NSFnet simulations. The spatial and temporal coordinates are the inputs of the NSFnets, while the instantaneous velocity and pressure fields are the outputs for the VP-NSFnet, and the instantaneous velocity and vorticity fields are the outputs for the VV-NSFnet. These two different forms of the Navier-Stokes equations together with the initial and boundary conditions are embedded into the loss function of the PINNs. No data is provided for the pressure to the VP-NSFnet, which is a hidden state and is obtained via the incompressibility constraint without splitting the equations. We obtain good accuracy of the NSFnet simulation results upon convergence of the loss function, verifying that NSFnets can effectively simulate complex incompressible flows using either the VP or the VV formulations. We also perform a systematic study on the weights used in the loss function for the data/physics components and investigate a new way of computing the weights dynamically to accelerate training and enhance accuracy. Our results suggest that the accuracy of NSFnets, for both laminar and turbulent flows, can be improved with proper tuning of weights (manual or dynamic) in the loss function.