A cyclic perspective on transient gust encounters through the lens of persistent homology

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Smith, Luke, Fukami, Kai, Sedky, Girguis, Jones, Anya, Taira, Kunihiko
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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_version_ 1866917840949346304
author Smith, Luke
Fukami, Kai
Sedky, Girguis
Jones, Anya
Taira, Kunihiko
author_facet Smith, Luke
Fukami, Kai
Sedky, Girguis
Jones, Anya
Taira, Kunihiko
contents Large amplitude gust encounters exhibit a range of separated flow phenomena, making them difficult to characterize using the traditional tools of aerodynamics. In this work, we propose a dynamical systems approach to gust encounters, viewing the flow as a cycle (or a closed trajectory) in state space. We posit that the topology of this cycle, or its shape and structure, provides a compact description of the flow, and can be used to identify coordinates in which the dynamics evolve in a simple, intuitive way. To demonstrate this idea, we consider flowfield measurements of a transverse gust encounter. For each case in the dataset, we characterize the full-state dynamics of the flow using persistent homology, a tool that identifies holes in point cloud data, and transform the dynamics to a reduced-order space using a nonlinear autoencoder. Critically, we constrain the autoencoder such that it preserves topologically relevant features of the original dynamics, or those features identified by persistent homology. Using this approach, we are able to transform six separate gust encounters to a three-dimensional latent space, in which each gust encounter reduces to a simple circle, and from which the original flow can be reconstructed. This result shows that topology can guide the creation of low-dimensional state representations for strong transverse gust encounters, a crucial step toward the modeling and control of airfoil-gust interactions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_15829
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A cyclic perspective on transient gust encounters through the lens of persistent homology
Smith, Luke
Fukami, Kai
Sedky, Girguis
Jones, Anya
Taira, Kunihiko
Fluid Dynamics
Large amplitude gust encounters exhibit a range of separated flow phenomena, making them difficult to characterize using the traditional tools of aerodynamics. In this work, we propose a dynamical systems approach to gust encounters, viewing the flow as a cycle (or a closed trajectory) in state space. We posit that the topology of this cycle, or its shape and structure, provides a compact description of the flow, and can be used to identify coordinates in which the dynamics evolve in a simple, intuitive way. To demonstrate this idea, we consider flowfield measurements of a transverse gust encounter. For each case in the dataset, we characterize the full-state dynamics of the flow using persistent homology, a tool that identifies holes in point cloud data, and transform the dynamics to a reduced-order space using a nonlinear autoencoder. Critically, we constrain the autoencoder such that it preserves topologically relevant features of the original dynamics, or those features identified by persistent homology. Using this approach, we are able to transform six separate gust encounters to a three-dimensional latent space, in which each gust encounter reduces to a simple circle, and from which the original flow can be reconstructed. This result shows that topology can guide the creation of low-dimensional state representations for strong transverse gust encounters, a crucial step toward the modeling and control of airfoil-gust interactions.
title A cyclic perspective on transient gust encounters through the lens of persistent homology
topic Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.15829