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Accelerating Large Eddy Simulations of Urban Airflow with Generative Adversarial Networks
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Civil and Architectural Engineering, Sustainable Buildings.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9287-6103
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Civil and Architectural Engineering, Sustainable Buildings. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Indoor Air Environmental Quality Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, 92 Weijin Road, Tianjin 300072, China.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1285-2334
2025 (English)In: Building and Environment, ISSN 0360-1323, E-ISSN 1873-684X, Vol. 286, article id 113622Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This study presents a deep learning framework designed to accelerate Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of airflow in urban environments. The framework leverages physics constrained conditional Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) trained on instantaneous velocity snapshots from a synthetically generated dataset comprising 130 high-fidelity CFD simulations of simple building configurations. By learning the mapping from early-stage flow fields to their statistically steady-state counterparts, the framework allows the simulation to bypass the lengthy transient averaging phase and predict the final time-averaged fields directly. Two GAN-based architectures are explored: a conventional convolutional model operating on structured uniform grids (Grid-GAN), and a graph-based model (Graph-GAN) that utilizes Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), specifically Graph Attention Networks (GATs), to process unstructured CFD mesh data while preserving native spatial connectivity. Both approaches are integrated into a fully automated pipeline built exclusively on open-source tools, including OpenFOAM for CFD simulations, FreeCAD and ParaView for preprocessing, and PyTorch for deep learning model development and training. Results demonstrate that the proposed models can significantly reduce LES computational costs while retaining accuracy in predicting turbulent flow characteristics. The Graph-GAN, in particular, shows enhanced adaptability and physical consistency due to its ability to exploit mesh refinements in critical regions. This work lays the foundation for the development of robust, physics-informed surrogate models and supports the growing integration of deep learning with scientific simulations in fluid mechanics.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier BV , 2025. Vol. 286, article id 113622
Keywords [en]
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Deep learning, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Graph Attention Networks (GATs), Large Eddy Simulation (LES), Urban airflow
National Category
Fluid Mechanics Computer Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-371057DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113622ISI: 001576535200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105016315900OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-371057DiVA, id: diva2:2003647
Note

QC 20251003

Available from: 2025-10-03 Created: 2025-10-03 Last updated: 2025-10-03Bibliographically approved

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Calzolari, GiovanniLiu, Wei

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