Multi-fidelity uncertainty quantification of irradiated particle-laden turbulence

Abstract: The study of complex systems is often based on computationally intensive, high-fidelity, simulations. To build confidence in the prediction accuracy of such simulations, the impact of uncertainties in model inputs on the quantities of interest must be measured. This, however, requires a computational budget that is a possibly large multiple of the cost of a single simulation, and thus may become infeasible for expensive simulation models featuring a large number of uncertain inputs and highly nonlinear behavior. Therefore, this work explores multi-fidelity strategies to accelerate the estimation of the effect of uncertainties. The main idea behind multi-fidelity models is to utilize cheaper, lower-fidelity models - than the intended high-fidelity, expensive model of the problem - to generate a baseline solution that together, with relatively small number of high-fidelity simulations can lead to accurate predictions. The methods are briefly presented, and their performance assessed on an irradiated particle-laden turbulent flow case related to Stanford's PSAAP II particle-based solar energy receiver.