Neural network models for preferential concentration of particles in two-dimensional turbulence

Cluster and void formations are key processes in the dynamics of particle-laden turbulence. In this work, we assess the performance of various neural network models for synthesizing preferential concentration fields of particles in turbulence. A database of direct numerical simulations of homogeneous isotropic two-dimensional turbulence with one-way coupled inertial point particles, is used to train the models using vorticity as the input to predict the particle number density fields. We compare encoder–decoder, U-Net, generative adversarial network (GAN), and diffusion model approaches, and assess the statistical properties of the generated particle number density fields. We find that the GANs are superior in predicting clusters and voids, and therefore result in the best performance. Additionally, we explore a concept of “supersampling”, where neural networks can be used to predict full particle data using only the information of few particles, which yields promising perspectives for reducing the computational cost of expensive DNS computations by avoiding the tracking of millions of particles. We also explore the inverse problem of synthesizing the absolute values of the vorticity fields using the particle number density distribution as the input at different Stokes numbers. Hence, our study also indicates the potential use of neural networks to predict turbulent flow statistics using experimental measurements of inertial particles.