High-fidelity reconstruction of turbulent flow from spatially limited data using enhanced super-resolution generative adversarial network

Abstract: In this study, a deep learning-based approach is applied with the aim of reconstructing high-resolution turbulent flow fields using minimal flow fields data. A multi-scale enhanced super-resolution generative adversarial network with a physics-based loss function is introduced as a model to reconstruct the high-resolution flow fields. The model capability to reconstruct high-resolution laminar flows is examined using data of laminar flow around a square cylinder. The results reveal that the model can accurately reproduce the high-resolution flow fields even when limited spatial information is provided. The case of turbulent channel flow is used to assess the ability of the model to reconstruct the high-resolution wall-bounded turbulent flow fields. The instantaneous and statistical results obtained from the model agree well with the ground truth data, indicating that the model can successfully learn to map the coarse flow fields to the high-resolution once. Furthermore, the computational cost of the proposed model, which is examined carefully, is found to be effectively low. This demonstrates that using high-fidelity training data with physics-guided generative adversarial network-based models can be practically efficient in reconstructing high-resolution turbulent flow fields from extremely coarse data.