An exact and consistent adjoint method for high-fidelity discretization of the compressible flow equations

Vishnampet Ganapathi Subramanian, Ramanathan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/88961 Copy

Description

Title

An exact and consistent adjoint method for high-fidelity discretization of the compressible flow equations

Author(s)

Vishnampet Ganapathi Subramanian, Ramanathan

Issue Date

2015-10-16

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Freund, Jonathan
• Bodony, Daniel

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

• Freund, Jonathan
• Bodony, Daniel

Committee Member(s)

• Olson, Luke
• Kloeckner, Andreas

Department of Study

Mechanical Science & Engineering

Discipline

Theoretical & Applied Mechanics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• adjoint methods
• dual consistency
• compressible flow
• turbulence
• sensitivity analysis
• Jet Noise
• Aeroacoustics
• discrete-adjoint method
• summation by parts
• simultaneous approximation term
• adjoint consistency
• mixing layer

Abstract

Methods and computing hardware advances have enabled accurate predictions of complex compressible turbulence phenomena, such as the generation of jet noise that motivates the present effort. However, limited understanding of underlying physical mechanisms restricts the utility of such predictions since they do not, by themselves, indicate a route to design improvement. Gradient-based optimization using adjoints can circumvent the flow complexity to guide designs. Such methods have enabled sensitivity analysis and active control of turbulence at engineering flow conditions by providing gradient information at computational cost comparable to that of simulating the flow. They accelerate convergence of numerical design optimization algorithms, though this is predicated on the availability of an accurate gradient of the discretized flow equations. This is challenging to obtain, since both the chaotic character of the turbulence and the typical use of discretizations near their resolution limits in order to efficiently represent its smaller scales will amplify any approximation errors made in the adjoint formulation. Formulating a practical exact adjoint that avoids such errors is especially challenging if it is to be compatible with state-of-the-art simulation methods used for the turbulent flow itself. Automatic differentiation (AD) can provide code to calculate a nominally exact adjoint, but existing general-purpose AD codes are inefficient to the point of being prohibitive for large-scale turbulence simulations. We analyze the compressible flow equations as discretized using the same high-order workhorse methods used for many high-fidelity compressible turbulence simulations, and formulate a practical space–time discrete-adjoint method without changing the basic discretization. A key step is the definition of a particular discrete analog of the continuous norm that defines our cost functional; our selection leads directly to an efficient Runge--Kutta-like scheme, with finite-difference spatial operators for the adjoint system. Its computational cost only modestly exceeds that of the flow equations. We confirm that its accuracy is limited only by computing precision, and we demonstrate it on the aeroacoustic control of a mixing layer with a challengingly broad range of turbulence scales. For comparison, the error from a corresponding discretization of the continuous-adjoint equations is quantified to potentially explain its limited success in past efforts to control jet noise. The differences are illuminating: the continuous-adjoint is shown to suffer from exponential error growth in (reverse) time even for the best-resolved largest turbulence scales. Though the gradient from our fully discrete adjoint is formally exact, it does include sensitivity to numerical solutions that are only an artifact of the discretization. These are typically saw-tooth type features, such as seen in under-resolved numerical simulations. Since these have no physical analog, for physical analysis or design of realistic actuators, such solutions are in a sense spurious. This has been addressed without sacrificing accuracy by redesigning the basic discretization to be dual-consistent, for which the discrete-adjoint is consistent with the adjoint of the continuous system, and thus, free from spurious numerical sensitivity modes. We extend our exact discrete-adjoint to a spatially dual-consistent discretization of the compressible flow equations and demonstrate its practical application for aeroacoustic control of a Mach 1.3 turbulent jet. The formulation admits a broad class of finite-difference schemes that satisfy a summation by-parts rule, and extends to multi-block curvilinear grids for efficient handling of complex geometries. The formulation is developed for several boundary conditions commonly used in simulation of free-shear and wall-bounded flows. In addition, the proposed discretization leads to superconvergent approximations of functionals, and can be tailored to achieve global conservation up to arbitrary orders of accuracy. We again confirm that the sensitivity gradient for turbulent jet noise computed using our dual-consistent method is only limited by computing precision.

Graduation Semester

2015-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/88961

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2015 Ramanathan Vishnampet Ganapathi Subramanian

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