Convolutional Neural Networks-Based For Predicting Aerodynamic Coefficient Of Airfoils At Ultra-Low Reynolds Number

Abstract

Many applications, including airplane design, wind turbines, and heat transmission, use symmetric or asymmetric airfoils. Engineers employ these airfoil shapes to optimize performance and efficiency. Each airfoil has a unique set of aerodynamic coefficients that must be calculated to maximize the airfoil design. Engineers utilize numerous ways to calculate coefficients, such as lift and drag. One of the methods is the prediction method, which effectively reduces time and cost. This study's training dataset is obtained from particle-based numerical computation using the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM). Then, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are used as a prediction method to get the aerodynamic coefficients of airfoils for lift and drag based on two different Reynolds numbers. In CNN, airfoil geometry representation is essential. The Signed Distance Function (SDF) was used to convert airfoil geometry into RGB pictures. On the other hand, the SDF method cannot explain different flow conditions; in this case, it is represented by the Reynolds number (Re). Therefore, we propose a Text-based Watermarking Method (TWM) to differentiate between Re = 500 and Re = 1000. Each airfoil representation was trained and tested to generate each prediction model using a modified LeNet-5. The computation results show that using CNN with TWM on SDF to define the Reynolds numbers could predict the lift and drag coefficients with varying angles of attack. Future research can focus on generalizations to different aerodynamic aspects and practical applications in complex scenarios.