FR3D: Three-dimensional Flow Reconstruction and Force Estimation for Unsteady Flows Around Arbitrary Bluff Bodies via Conformal Mapping Aided Convolutional Autoencoders

In many practical fluid dynamics experiments, measuring variables such as velocity and pressure is possible only at a limited number of sensor locations, or for a few two-dimensional planes in the flow. However, knowledge of the full fields is necessary to understand the dynamics of many flows. Deep learning reconstruction of full flow fields from sparse measurements has recently garnered significant research interest, as a way of overcoming this limitation. This task is referred to as the flow reconstruction (FR) task. In the present study, we propose a convolutional autoencoder based neural network model, dubbed FR3D, which enables FR to be carried out for three-dimensional flows around extruded 3D objects with arbitrary cross-sections. An innovative mapping approach, whereby multiple fluid domains are mapped to an annulus, enables FR3D to generalize its performance to objects not encountered during training. We conclusively demonstrate this generalization capability using a dataset composed of 80 training and 20 testing geometries, all randomly generated. We show that the FR3D model reconstructs pressure and velocity components with a few percentage points of error. Additionally, using these predictions, we accurately estimate the Q-criterion fields as well lift and drag forces on the geometries.