Events

IACS Seminars

Learning physics-based models from data: Perspectives from model reduction

Karen Willcox

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, Austin

Feb 18, 2022

RSVP HERE:  https://forms.gle/noD1XiwnNyxnxx8r6
Abstract: 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 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. For problems where the complexity of the physics does not admit a global low-rank structure, we construct a nonlinear approximation space. This is achieved via clustering to obtain localized Operator Inference models, or by approximation in a quadratic manifold. The methodology is demonstrated on challenging large-scale problems arising in rocket combustion and materials phase-field applications. 

Speaker Bio

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.

Contact
Host:

Institute for Applied Computational Science (IACS)

Contact:

Jackie Strom

Location