Distinguished Seminar in Computational Science and Engineering
April 6, 2023, 12 PM
Learning physics-based models from data: Perspectives from projection-based model reduction
Karen Willcox
The University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
Reduced-order models play a critical role in achieving design, control and uncertainty quantification for complex systems. They are also a key enabling technology for predictive digital twins. Operator Inference is a method for learning predictive reduced-order models from data. The method targets the derivation of a reduced-order model of an expensive high-fidelity simulator that solves known governing equations. Rather than learn a generic approximation with weak enforcement of the physics, we learn low-dimensional operators of a dynamical system whose structure is defined by the physical problem being modeled. These reduced operators are determined by solving a linear least squares problem, making Operator Inference scalable to high-dimensional problems. The method is entirely non-intrusive, meaning that it requires simulation snapshot data but does not require access to or modification of the high-fidelity source code. The approach is demonstrated for large-scale engineering problems in rocket combustion, additive manufacturing and materials modeling.
Bio
Karen E. Willcox is Director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Associate Vice President for Research, and Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. At UT, she holds the W. A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Chair in Simulation-Based Engineering and Sciences and the Peter O’Donnell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Computing Systems. Before joining the Oden Institute in 2018, she spent 17 years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she served as the founding Co-Director of the MIT Center for Computational Engineering and the Associate Head of the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Prior to joining the MIT faculty, she worked at Boeing Phantom Works with the Blended-Wing-Body aircraft design group. She is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and in 2017 was appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to aerospace engineering and education. In 2022 she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
Learning physics-based models from data: Perspectives from projection-based model reduction
Karen Willcox
The University of Texas at Austin