A Galerkin-free model reduction approach for the Navier-Stokes equations

Galerkin projection of the Navier-Stokes equations on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) basis is predominantly used for model reduction in fluid dynamics. The robustness for changing operating conditions, numerical stability in long-term transient behavior and the pressure-term consideration are generally the main concerns of the Galerkin Reduced-Order Models (ROM). In this article, we present a novel procedure to construct an off-reference solution state by using an interpolated POD reduced basis. A linear interpolation of the POD reduced basis is performed by using two reference solution states. The POD basis functions are optimal in capturing the averaged flow energy. The energy dominant POD modes and corresponding base flow are interpolated according to the change in operating parameter. The solution state is readily built without performing the Galerkin projection of the Navier-Stokes equations on the reduced POD space modes as well as the following time-integration of the resulted Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE) to obtain the POD time coefficients. The proposed interpolation based approach is thus immune from the numerical issues associated with a standard POD-Galerkin ROM. In addition, a posteriori error estimate and a stability analysis of the obtained ROM solution are formulated. A detailed case study of the flow past a cylinder at low Reynolds numbers is considered for the demonstration of proposed method. The ROM results show good agreement with the high fidelity numerical flow simulation.