Swirling flow field reconstruction and cooling performance analysis based on experimental observations using physics-informed neural networks

Abstract

The design of thermal protection modules (such as film cooling) for combustion chambers requires a high-fidelity swirling flow field. Although numerical methods provide insights into three-dimensional mechanisms of swirling flow, their predictions of key features such as recirculation zones and swirling jets are often unsatisfactory due to inherent anisotropy and the isotropic nature of the Boussinesq hypothesis. Experimental methods, such as hot wire, laser Doppler velocimetry, and planar particle image velocimetry (PIV), offer more accurate reference data but are limited by sparse or planar observations. In this study, considering the outperformed capability of solving inverse problems, physics-informed neural network (PINN) was adopted to reconstruct the mean swirling flow field based on limited experimental observations from two-dimensional and two-component (2D2C) results. It was found that adding partial information characterizing the swirling flow, such as the swirling jet, could significantly improve the reconstruction of flow field. In addition, film cooling effectiveness was the key variable to evaluate the film cooling performance, which was relatively measurable in the scalar field. To further improve the accuracy of the reconstruction, the multi-source strategy was adopted into the neural network, where the film cooling effectiveness (FCE) of the effusion plate was imported as the scalar source. It was found that the prediction of the flow field near the target plate was improved, where the highest error reduction could reach 76.5%. Finally, through the reconstructed three-dimensional vortex distribution, it was found that swirling flow vortex structures near the swirler exit had a significant impact on cooling effectiveness, causing a non-uniform cooling distribution. This study aims to diagnose the three-dimensional swirling flow field with deep learning by leveraging limited experimental data and deepen the understanding of effusion cooling under swirling flow condition so that obtains a more accurate reference in the design of thermal protection modules.