Fully Differentiable Boundary Element Solver for Hydrodynamic Sensitivity Analysis of Wave-Structure Interactions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fully differentiable boundary element method solver that enables accurate sensitivity analysis of wave-structure interactions, facilitating improved design optimization in marine engineering.

Contribution

The work presents the first differentiable BEM solver supporting automatic differentiation for hydrodynamic sensitivity analysis.

Findings

Enables automatic differentiation in boundary element method simulations.

Improves accuracy of sensitivity estimates for wave-structure interactions.

Facilitates optimization and design processes in marine engineering.

Abstract

Accurately predicting wave-structure interactions is critical for the effective design and analysis of marine structures. This is typically achieved using solvers that employ the boundary element method (BEM), which relies on linear potential flow theory. Precise estimation of the sensitivity of these interactions is equally important for system-level applications such as design optimization. Current BEM solvers are unable to provide these sensitivities as they do not support automatic differentiation (AD). To address these challenges, we have developed a fully differentiable BEM solver