Transfer learning for efficient meta-modeling of process simulations

Abstract In chemical engineering applications, computational efficient meta-models have been successfully implemented in many instants to surrogate the high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulators. Nevertheless, substantial simulation efforts are still required to generate representative training data for building meta-models. To solve this problem, in this research work an efficient meta-modeling method is developed based on the concept of transfer learning. First, a base model is built which roughly mimics the CFD simulator. With the help of this model, the feasible operating region of the simulated process is estimated, within which computer experiments are designed. After that, CFD simulations are run at the designed points for data collection. A transfer learning step, which is based on the Bayesian migration technique, is then conducted to build the final meta-model by integrating the information of the base model with the simulation data. Because of the incorporation of the base model, only a small number of simulation points are needed in meta-model training.