Reduced Basis Isogeometric Methods (RB-IGA) for the real-time simulation of potential flows about parametrized NACA airfoils

•Optimization and design problems require many costly evaluations of system of PDEs.•Reduced basis methods allow the reliable and real time solution of PDEs.•Iso-Geometric Analysis is used for complex geometrical parametrizations.•We present the first coupling of RB methods with IGA for aero and hydro dynamics.•We validate the coupling with potential flows around NACA airfoils.

We present a Reduced Basis (RB) method based on Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) for the rapid and reliable evaluation of PDE systems characterized by complex geometrical features. At the current state of the art, this is the first case of coupling between RB and IGA methods. The construction of the RB method relies on an Isogeometric Boundary Element Method (IGA-BEM) as the high-fidelity technique, allowing a direct interface with Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools. A suitable Empirical Interpolation Method (EIM) ensures an efficient offline/online decomposition between the construction and the evaluation of the RB method. We consider the real-time simulation of potential flows past airfoils, parametrized with respect to the angle of attack and the NACA number identifying their shape, and we provide a validation of our methodology with respect to experimental data and reference numerical codes, showing in both cases a very good agreement.