Fully convolutional networks for velocity-field predictions based on the wall heat flux in turbulent boundary layers

Abstract

Fully-convolutional neural networks (FCN) were proven to be effective for predicting the instantaneous state of a fully-developed turbulent flow at different wall-normal locations using quantities measured at the wall. In Guastoni et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 928, A27 (2021)], we focused on wall-shear-stress distributions as input, which are difficult to measure in experiments. In order to overcome this limitation, we introduce a model that can take as input the heat-flux field at the wall from a passive scalar. Four different Prandtl numbers $Pr = \nu/\alpha = (1,2,4,6)$ are considered (where $\nu$ is the kinematic viscosity and $\alpha$ is the thermal diffusivity of the scalar quantity). A turbulent boundary layer is simulated since accurate heat-flux measurements can be performed in experimental settings: first we train the network on aptly-modified DNS data and then we fine-tune it on the experimental data. Finally, we test our network on experimental data sampled in a water tunnel. These predictions represent the first application of transfer learning on experimental data of neural networks trained on simulations. This paves the way for the implementation of a non-intrusive sensing approach for the flow in practical applications.