NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Predicting Two-Dimensional Airfoil Performance Using Graph Neural Networks

Computer simulations require the use of meshes to simulate geometries. These meshes capture important geometric features of the design and can be used in machine learning modeling. This report explores the use of graph neural networks (GNNs) to learn features from two-dimensional (2D) airfoil designs represented as a set of nodes connected using edges. This type of network is common in aerospace applications: most geometries are represented as a mesh in order to perform analysis. The objective of this work is to use GNNs to predict the performance of 2D airfoils generated using the program XFOIL. The predicted performance parameters include bulk quantities such as coefficients of lift (CL), drag (Cd, Cdp), moment (Cm), and node-specific quantities such as coefficient of pressure (Cp). In this report, a spline convolutional graph-based neural network is compared with deep learning neural networks to predict both bulk and node-specific quantities. The findings indicate the GNNs are able to predict bulk quantities quite well; however, when the number of outputs is increased, the deep neural network (DNN) proves to be better in its prediction capability. Two different normalization strategies were compared in the training of both GNNs and DNNs: minmax and standard deviation. In both types of networks, standard deviation scaling proved to be the best.

Document ID
20220006290
Acquisition Source
Glenn Research Center
Document Type
Technical Memorandum (TM)
Authors
Paht Juangphanich
(Glenn Research Center Cleveland, Ohio, United States)
Justin Rush
(Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
Natasha Scannell
(University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States)
Date Acquired
April 25, 2022
Publication Date
April 1, 2023
Subject Category
Aeronautics (General)
Report/Patent Number
E-20038
Funding Number(s)
WBS: 081876.02.03.50.10.03.02
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
Technical Review
Single Expert
Keywords
machine learning
graph networks
gnn
pytorch
No Preview Available