Smart adaptive run parameterization (SArP): enhancement of user manual selection of running parameters in fluid dynamic simulations using bio-inspired and machine-learning techniques

Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations present numerous challenges in the domain of artificial intelligence. Computational time, resources and cost that can reach disproportional size before leading a simulation to its fully converged solution are one of the central issues in this domain. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm that finds optimal parameter settings for the numerical solvers of CFD software. Indeed, this research proposes an alternative approach; rather than going deeper in reducing the mathematical complexity, it suggests taking advantage of the history of previous runs in order to estimate the best parameters for numerical equation resolution. In fact, our approach is bio-inspired and based on a genetic algorithm (GA) and evolutionary strategies enhanced with surrogate functions based on machine-learning meta-models. Our research method was tested on 11 different use cases using various configurations of the GA and algorithms of machine learning such as regression trees extra trees regressors and random forest regressors. Our approach has achieved better runtime performance and higher convergence quality (an improvement varying between 8 and 40%) in all of the test cases when compared to a basic approach which requires manually selecting the parameters. Moreover, our approach outperforms in some cases manual selection of parameters by reaching convergent solutions that couldn’t otherwise be achieved manually.