Model reduction of convection-dominated partial differential equations via optimization-based implicit feature tracking

This work introduces a new approach to reduce the computational cost of solving partial differential equations (PDEs) with convection-dominated solutions: model reduction with implicit feature tracking. Traditional model reduction techniques use an affine subspace to reduce the dimensionality of the solution manifold and, as a result, yield limited reduction and require extensive training due to the slowly decaying Kolmogorov $n$-width of convection-dominated problems. The proposed approach circumvents the slowly decaying $n$-width limitation by using a nonlinear approximation manifold systematically defined by composing a low-dimensional affine space with a space of bijections of the underlying domain. Central to the implicit feature tracking approach is a residual minimization problem over the reduced nonlinear manifold that simultaneously determines the reduced coordinates in the affine space and the domain mapping that minimize the residual of the unreduced PDE discretization. The nonlinear trial manifold is constructed by using the proposed residual minimization formulation to determine domain mappings that cause parametrized features to align in a reference domain for a set of training parameters. Because the feature is stationary in the reference domain, i.e., the convective nature of solution removed, the snapshots are effectively compressed to define an affine subspace. The space of domain mappings, originally constructed using high-order finite elements, are also compressed in a way that ensures the boundaries of the original domain are maintained. Several numerical experiments are provided, including transonic and supersonic, inviscid, compressible flows, to demonstrate the potential of the method to yield accurate approximations to convection-dominated problems with limited training.