Physics-informed neural networks for heat transfer prediction in two-phase flows

Abstract

This paper presents data-driven simulations of two-phase fluid processes with heat transfer. A Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN) was applied to capture the behaviour of phase interfaces in two-phase flows and model the hydrodynamics and heat transfer of flow configurations representative of established numerical test cases. The developed PINN approach was trained on simulation data derived from physically based Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations with interface capturing. The present study considers fundamental problems, including tracking the rise of a single gas bubble in a denser fluid and exploring the heat transfer in the wake of a bubble rising close to a heated wall. Tracking of a rising bubble phase interface of fluids with disparate properties was performed, revealing a maximum error of only 5.2% at the interface edge and a maximum error of 2.8% at the position of the centre of mass. Inferred (hidden variable) flows are studied in addition to a purely extrapolative inverse isothermal bubble case. When no velocity data was supplied, velocity field predictions remained accurate. Rise of an inferred isothermal bubble with unseen fluid properties was found to produce a maximum mean-squared error of 0.28 and centre of mass error of 1.25%. For the case of the rising bubble with a hot wall, the maximum error in the temperature domain using specified boundary conditions was 6.8%, while the bubble position analysis reveals a maximum positional error of 3.6%. These results demonstrate that PINN is agnostic to geometry and fluid properties when studying the combined effects of convection and buoyancy on two-phase flows for the first time. This work serves as a starting point for PINN in multiphase cases involving heat transfer over a range of geometries. Eventually, PINN will be used in such cases to provide solutions for forward, inverse, and extrapolative cases. Each of which represent a dramatic saving in computational cost compared to traditional CFD.