Dynamics of a data-driven low-dimensional model of turbulent minimal Couette flow

TL;DR

This paper develops a data-driven low-dimensional model for turbulent Couette flow using neural networks and autoencoders, capturing key dynamics with fewer than 20 degrees of freedom and outperforming traditional POD-Galerkin models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel neural network-based manifold modeling approach that accurately describes turbulent flow dynamics with significantly reduced complexity.

Findings

Models accurately track flow trajectories for multiple Lyapunov times.

Models capture Reynolds stress and energy balance at long times.

Discovered nine new unstable periodic orbits in the flow.

Abstract

Because the Navier-Stokes equations are dissipative, the long-time dynamics of a flow in state space are expected to collapse onto a manifold whose dimension may be much lower than the dimension required for a resolved simulation. On this manifold, the state of the system can be exactly described in a coordinate system parameterizing the manifold. Describing the system in this low-dimensional coordinate system allows for much faster simulations and analysis. We show, for turbulent Couette flow, that this description of the dynamics is possible using a data-driven manifold dynamics modeling method. This approach consists of an autoencoder to find a low-dimensional manifold coordinate system and a set of ordinary differential equations defined by a neural network. Specifically, we apply this method to minimal flow unit turbulent plane Couette flow at $\textit{Re}=400$, where a fully resolved solutions requires $\mathcal{O}(10^5)$ degrees of freedom. Using only data from this simulation we build models with fewer than $20$ degrees of freedom that quantitatively capture key characteristics of the flow, including the streak breakdown and regeneration cycle. At short-times, the models track the true trajectory for multiple Lyapunov times, and, at long-times, the models capture the Reynolds stress and the energy balance. For comparison, we show that the models outperform POD-Galerkin models with $\sim$2000 degrees of freedom. Finally, we compute unstable periodic orbits from the models. Many of these closely resemble previously computed orbits for the full system; additionally, we find nine orbits that correspond to previously unknown solutions in the full system.