Prediction of laminar vortex shedding over a cylinder using deep learning

Unsteady laminar vortex shedding over a circular cylinder is predicted using a deep learning technique, a generative adversarial network (GAN), with a particular emphasis on elucidating the potential of learning the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations. Numerical simulations at two different Reynolds numbers with different time-step sizes are conducted to produce training datasets of flow field variables. Unsteady flow fields in the future at a Reynolds number which is not in the training datasets are predicted using a GAN. Predicted flow fields are found to qualitatively and quantitatively agree well with flow fields calculated by numerical simulations. The present study suggests that a deep learning technique can be utilized for prediction of laminar wake flow in lieu of solving the Navier-Stokes equations.