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RESEARCH ARTICLE | AUGUST 28 2023

Airfoil shape optimization using genetic algorithm coupled

deep neural networks 
Ming-Yu Wu (吴明雨) ; Xin-Yi Yuan (袁心怡); Zhi-Hua Chen (陈志华); Wei-Tao Wu (吴威涛) ;
Yue Hua (华越)  ; Nadine Aubry

Physics of Fluids 35, 085140 (2023)

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0160954

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 Physics of Fluids ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof

Airfoil shape optimization using genetic algorithm

coupled deep neural networks
Cite as: Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
Submitted: 6 June 2023 . Accepted: 10 August 2023 .
Published Online: 28 August 2023

Ming-Yu Wu (吴明雨),1 Xin-Yi Yuan (袁心怡),2 Zhi-Hua Chen (陈志华),1 Wei-Tao Wu (吴威涛),2 Yue Hua (华越),3,a)
and Nadine Aubry4

AFFILIATIONS
1
Key Laboratory of Transient Physics, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
2
School of Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
3
Sino-French Engineer School, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: yhua@njust.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
To alleviate the computational burden associated with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation stage and improve aerodynamic

28 August 2023 10:55:55

optimization efficiency, this work develops an innovative procedure for airfoil shape optimization, which is implemented through coupling
the genetic algorithm (GA) optimizer with the aerodynamic coefficients prediction network (ACPN) model. The ACPN is established using
a fully connected neural network with the airfoil geometry as the input and aerodynamic coefficients as the output. The results show that the
ACPN’s mean prediction accuracy for the lift and drag coefficient is high up to about 99.02%. Moreover, the prediction time of each
aerodynamic coefficient is within 5 ms, four orders of magnitude faster compared to the CFD solver (3 min). Taking advantage of the fast
and accurate prediction, the proposed ACPN model replaces the expensive CFD simulations and couples with GA to force the airfoil shape
change to maximize the lift–drag ratio under multiple constraints. In terms of time efficiency, optimized airfoils can be fast obtained within
25 s. Even considering an extra 50 h spent on data preparing and 20 s for model training, the overall calculation cost is reduced by a
remarkable 62.1% compared to the GA-CFD optimization method (5.5 days). Furthermore, the GA-ACPN model improves the lift–drag
ratio with and without constraint by 51.4% and 55.4% for NACA0012 airfoil, respectively, while 50.3% and 60.0% improvement achieved by
the GA-CFD optimization method. These results indicate that the GA-ACPN optimization approach significantly enhances the optimization
efficiency and has great potential to address varying constraint optimization problems.
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0160954

I. INTRODUCTION cavitation conditions with varying different outlet impeller diameters9

Aerodynamic optimization design has a crucial effect on the
transport efficiency, flight quality, and aerodynamic performance of
the aircraft. As an essential aircraft component, the airfoil can provide
the lift forces for aircraft navigation and various flight maneuvers.
Therefore, substantial research on airfoil shape optimization has been
carried out in the aerospace and mechanical engineering field.1,2
The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has long been an effec-
tive tool for simulations and analysis of complex characteristics.3–5
Profiting from its great advantage of low cost compared with experi-
ments, it has been applied in the fields of fluid dynamics,6 aerody-
namic,7,8 and so on. For instance, in the fields of fluid dynamics,
AI-Obaidi has utilized CFD techniques to carry out numerous numer-
ical or experimental investigations on centrifugal pumps, including
the transient flow field of a centrifugal pump under single-phase and
and the flow analysis of the influence of the guide vanes on the axial
bump,10 etc. In terms of the aerodynamic shape optimization (ASO), a
great deal of previous research performed the airfoil shape optimiza-
tion using the classical approach, which usually consists of two steps:
(1) carrying out the CFD simulations to provide the aerodynamic
characteristics of observation airfoils, where a mesh regenerated each
time the optimizer changes the airfoil shape; (2) using an optimizer to
figure out the airfoil of the best aerodynamic performance, satisfying
both geometric constraints and functional requirements. Della
Vecchia et al.11 introduced an innovative optimization procedure, cou-
pling a parametric section (PARSEC) parameterization for airfoil
shape with a genetic algorithm (GA) optimization method.
Considering the characteristics of viscous transonic flow surrounding
the trailing edge, Shahrokhi and Jahangirian12 presented the improved

Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954 35, 085140-1

Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids
parameterization method based on the study of Sobieczky13 and then
applied GA, supplemented by mesh movement strategy, for optimiz-
ing the airfoil shape under turbulent flow conditions. He et al.14 pro-
posed the B-splines free-form deformation (FFD) method along with
adaptive parameterization to define the airfoil shape, overcoming
robustness issues related to shape parameterization, mesh deforma-
tion, and flow solver convergence. Then, they utilized mesh deforma-
tion techniques to change the CFD surface mesh and finally employed
sparse nonlinear optimizer (SNOPT) to find the optimal airfoil shape.
Since no unique correlations exist between functional requirements
and airfoil geometric shape,15 the above processes need to be iterated
continuously to find the optimal solution, which will take a substantial
amount of time and computing resources.
To alleviate the computational burden associated with the CFD
simulation stage and improve optimization efficiency, surrogate mod-
els have been widely applied in aerodynamic optimization and
design.16–20 However, when sampling the design space, this method
can still exponentially increase the computational cost as the dimen-
sion of the design space grows. To combat this, researchers have
devoted to dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques for the original
parametric design space. Raul and Leifsson21 used a Kriging regression
surrogate model coupling PARSEC parameterization method to
reduce the computational burden of ASO, mitigating the airfoil’s
dynamic stall characteristics. Berguin and Mavris22 used principal
component analysis (PCA) to re-formulate the optimization problem
in a lower dimensional coordinate system, where the adjoint formula-
tion can effectively reduce the gradient computing time. However, the
curse of dimensionality remains unavoidable when exploring different
design alternatives. Hence, Berguin et al.23 proposed latent space gra-
dient transformation based on applying PCA to gradient information,
facilitating gradient-free exploration. Grey and Constantine24 pre-
sented a low-dimensional active space, identifying a direction to per-
turb the design. As it provides insight that represent the dependence
on design variables, the optimization design process can be acceler-
ated. Moreover, rather than capturing dimensions that affect the final
design performance, some other techniques speed up the exploration
of design space by capturing the major shape variability.25–28
However, these DR models failed to precisely perceive the realistic
shape variability.
Fortunately, recent advances in machine learning techniques
offer a brand-new promising avenue for aerodynamic shape optimiza-
tion due to their capability to successfully represent realistic relation-
ships from complex high-dimensional data. For example, as a branch
of the machine learning, deep neural networks (DNNs) have emerged
as an efficient and powerful tool for data-driven fluid dynamics mod-
eling.29–32 They have also been successfully applied in the analysis of
complex fluid flow.33,34 In the field of aerodynamic shape optimiza-
tion, Liu et al.35 developed an efficient aerodynamic shape optimiza-
tion framework by coupling the aerodynamic coefficient prediction
model with Bayesian optimization, demonstrating great potential in
achieving fast and accurate airfoil shape optimization and design. Yan
et al.36 wisely combined machine learning techniques, reinforcement
learning, and transfer learning to address the aerodynamic shape opti-
mization problem of missile control surfaces, proposing a novel opti-
mization architecture based on machine learning techniques. Li et al.37
applied a deep convolutional generative adversarial network (GAN) to
learn the underlying features of the existing airfoils. Therefore, the
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof
trained network can generate more realistic airfoil samples. In nature,
this method was proposed for geometric filtering to improve the opti-
mization efficiency. Achour et al.38 adopted a conditional generative
adversarial network (CGAN) to optimize the airfoil shape, where
CGAN can guide the shape transformation toward particular classes
of labeled samples by labeling each airfoil shape with precalculated
aerodynamic characteristics. Li et al.39 employed deep learning techni-
ques to develop a tailored airfoil modal parameterization method for
low-Reynolds-number airfoils. By applying this method to solve the
optimization problems using the sequential least squares programing
(SLSQP) algorithm, the novel parameterization method showcased its
capability to effectively define the design space and enhance the design
efficiency. To sum up, Li et al.40 provided a comprehensive review of
aerodynamic shape optimization (ASO) through the lens of machine
learning. They introduced the state-of-the-art techniques and the
remaining challenges in aerodynamic shape optimization (ASO) from
three fundamental perspectives: compact geometric design space, fast
aerodynamic analysis, and efficient optimization architecture.
According to this, it is known that there are a few studies coupling
deep learning-based fast aerodynamic analysis and optimization algo-
rithms. Therefore, to improve the efficiency of the existing optimiza-
tion methods, this work focuses on implementing an efficient
optimization framework using deep learning and evolutionary
algorithm.
In addition to the studies on the computational cost reduction of
the classic optimization process, scientists also pay increasing attention
28 August 2023 10:55:55
to the selection of airfoil parameterization methods due to their signifi-
cant influence on the design space of the numerical optimizer and cal-
culation efficiency during the optimization process.41 A slight
variation in the airfoil curve will transform the aerodynamic perfor-
mance of the airfoil. For example, a tiny turn of the trailing edge angle
can severely affect the circulation around the airfoil related to the
Kutta condition.42,43 So far, varieties of methods have been employed
for airfoil parameterization in aerodynamic shape design, such as B-
splines,44,45 Bezier curve,46–48 PARSEC,21,49 Hicks–Henne,50,51 and
class/shape function transformation (CST).52–54 Among these parame-
terization methods, the B-splines is the generalization of the Bezier
curve, where control points around the geometry are introduced to
define the airfoil shape. It allows designers to manipulate the airfoil
shape by moving control points. However, the inappropriate control
points may lead to impractical shapes, influencing the optimum shape.
In addition, many design variables are usually required to supply great
flexibility for the airfoil design space, which increases the optimization
complexity and computational time. The PARSEC method is mainly
applied in the aerodynamic optimization research of the supercritical
airfoil from the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE2822), where the
parameters that define the trailing edge are not easy to control. The
Hicks–Henne bump functions provide valuable information about
how changes in design parameters affect the shape of the airfoil by
managing the contributions of each base function. Furthermore,
Wang and Gao55 introduced an additional trailing edge perturbation
function to eliminate the overlap of the airfoil trailing edges, improv-
ing the quality of the airfoil description and expanding the design
space. The CST method has some superiorities over other parameteri-
zation methods, such as an infinite leading edge slope, namely, a round
edge radius, and a finite trailing edge angle. The above airfoil shape
parameterization techniques were synthetically compared in Ref. 56,
35, 085140-2
 Physics of Fluids
which offered the reference metrics for designer to select the suitable
parameterization based on the specific problem.
In this work, to develop an alternative to addressing the time-
consuming CFD simulations during ASO, aerodynamic coefficient
modeling is conducted using a fully connected neural network (FCN),
a nonlinear mapping function between the airfoil geometry and the
aerodynamic coefficient. In particular, the aerodynamic coefficient
prediction network (ACPN) takes as input a two-dimensional matrix
represented airfoil profile, which is constructed by varying the design
variables in the improved Hicks–Henne bump functions. To verify the
ACPN model’s predictive performance for aerodynamic coefficient,
several test cases different from the previous airfoil design space are
carried out. Subsequently, the optimization procedure that couples
ACPN with the classic GA optimization method is implemented in a
numerical code to seek out the optimal airfoil satisfying both geomet-
ric constraints and functional requirements. In general, the main
objective and contributions of the present work are summarized as
follows:
(1) This paper developed a high-precision aerodynamic surrogate
model called the ACPN model using the deep learning tech-
nique, which implements a fast and accurate surrogate model-
ing from airfoil geometry to aerodynamic performance.
(2) The improved Hicks–Henne bump functions were adopted to
parameterize airfoil shapes and generate abundant airfoil coor-
dinates library.
(3) The proposed optimization framework coupled the ACPN model
with the GA optimizer. This framework was applied to optimize
the NACA0012 airfoil under two different objective functions. We
also performed another optimization procedure but using the
CFD solver to provide aerodynamic data, which is regarded the
ground truth for comparison with GA-ACPN optimization. By
comparison, the proposed GA-ACPN optimization framework
can achieve the comparable optimization results within a very
short time, proving the reliability and efficiency of the ACPN
model for aerodynamic shape optimization.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Sec. II starts
by outlining the overall optimization procedure coupling the
FIG. 1. Schematic of the overall GA-ACPN framework.
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof
aerodynamic coefficient prediction network with the GA optimization
method (GA-ACPN). Then, the primary methods are followed,
including airfoil geometry parameterization, the establishment of the
ACPN, and the coupling mechanism of bonding ACPN with GA opti-
mization. In Sec. III, we demonstrate and discuss the prediction and
optimization results obtained using the GA-ACPN framework.
Section IV concludes the current work.
II. METHOD
In general, this paper focuses on proposing a novel approach for
aerodynamic shape optimization combining a deep learning-based
aerodynamic coefficient predictor and an evolutionary algorithm.
Specifically, aerodynamic coefficient modeling is first accomplished
via a fully connected network, which fast calculates the aerodynamic
coefficient from the airfoil shape, replacing the computationally expen-
sive CFD simulations. Then, GA is coupled with the ACPN model to
find the optimal airfoil under multiple constraints.
A. Overall architecture of GA-ACPN framework
The overall GA-ACPN framework is mainly composed of three
parts: airfoil geometry parameterization, aerodynamic coefficient
modeling, and airfoil shape optimization, as shown in Fig. 1. First, the
improved Hicks–Henne bump functions are adopted to parameterize
the airfoil geometry. Particularly, to ensure the uniformity of the airfoil
space, the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique is utilized to
28 August 2023 10:55:55
generate numerous groups of design variables, and then, the airfoil
space is constructed. Second, a CFD simulation tool, OpenFOAM, is
applied to obtain the true aerodynamic coefficient. Subsequently, the
ACPN model is trained with the airfoil coordinates as the input matrix
and the true aerodynamic coefficient as the labeled data. Finally, the
procedure of airfoil design optimization is completed by coupling the
GA optimization method and the ACPN model.
B. Airfoil geometry parameterization
For either optimization or prediction of aerodynamic perfor-
mance, airfoil shape parameterization is a crucial aspect. In this work,
35, 085140-3
 Physics of Fluids ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof

FIG. 2. Comparison of the original and improved Hicks–Henne bump functions [the upper surface of NACA0012 with 0 angle of attack (AOA) in red]: (a) original and (b)
improved.

the improved Hicks–Henne bump functions are adopted to describe can be significantly altered without airfoil distortion, where a is the
various airfoil profiles55 slope coefficient and b is the decay coefficient. In this study, a and b
are set as 5 and 10, respectively.
X
k¼n
Theoretically, the more design variables are employed, the more
yup ¼ y0up þ ck fk ðxÞ; (1)
accurate airfoil curves will be obtained by improved Hicks–Henne
k¼1
bump functions, and the more satisfied optimization results are. To
X
k¼n simplify the airfoil parameterization process and reduce complexity
ylow ¼ y0low þ ckþn fk ðxÞ; (2) and time consumption, this study opts to select only five control posi-
k¼1 tions on both the upper and lower surfaces of the airfoil, i.e.,
8

28 August 2023 10:55:55

x ¼ ½0:30; 0:45; 0:60; 0:75; 0:90. Along with the leading and trailing
> 20x
< x ð1  xÞe ; k ¼ 1;
0:25
> edges, the k is set to be 7 and the xk ¼ ½0:00; 0:30; 0:45; 0:60;
fk ðxÞ ¼ sin ðpx Þ;
3 eð k Þ
2  k  n  1; (3) 0:75; 0:90; 1:00. Then, according to Eqs. (1)–(4), there will be 14
>
>
: axð1  xÞebð1xÞ ; k ¼ n; design variables to optimize.
Figure 2 shows the comparison of the original and improved
ln0:5 Hicks–Henne bump functions. The apparent discrepancy is that, in the
eðkÞ ¼ ; 0 < xk < 1; (4) improved Hick–Henne bump functions, one more bump function is
lnxk
introduced to control the variation in the trailing edge. Meanwhile, the
where y0 denotes the surface function of the base airfoil, and y denotes improved Hicks–Henne bump functions also completely retain the
that of the parameterized airfoil, and the subscripts up and low corre- advantages of the original Hicks–Henne bump functions. To intuitively
spond to the upper and lower surfaces of the airfoil. x denotes the hor- visualize the favorable effect on the trailing edge of the improved
izontal coordinate along the chord direction, n is the order of the Hicks–Henne generated airfoils, Fig. 3 illustrates the comparison of ten
Hicks–Henne bump functions, and ck and ckþn represent the design samples from the airfoil space generated by the original and improved
variables that transform the airfoil shape and will be optimized by GA. Hicks–Henne bump functions. It can be clearly seen that the improved
fk ðxÞ is the improved Hicks–Henne bump function, and xk denotes Hicks–Henne bump functions can elaborately distinguish the trailing
the horizontal position of ck and ckþn on the airfoil surface between edge, enhancing the accuracy of the airfoil description.
the leading and trailing edges. The third item in fk ðxÞ, namely, To demonstrate the effect of design variables on the airfoil’s base-
axð1  xÞebð1xÞ , is the improvement to ensure that the trailing edge line geometry, we select c2 , c4 , and c6 as examples and set them to

FIG. 3. Comparison of the airfoil shape generated by the original and improved Hicks–Henne bump functions: (a) original and (b) improved.

Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954 35, 085140-4

Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids
FIG. 4. Effect of design variables of Hicks–Henne bump functions on the airfoil’s baseline geometry: (a) effects of the individual design variable on the airfoil shape and (b)
design space.
0.007 individually while keeping other design variables zero. As a
result, the baseline geometry of NACA0012 airfoil expands outward,
as shown in Fig. 4(a). Combined with Fig. 2, it can be seen that if the
design variable changes, the shape at the corresponding control point
is most altered obviously, along with the slightly weaker change from
the leading to the trailing edge of the airfoil, which is caused by the lin-
ear combination of a set of basis Hicks–Henne bump functions. In
addition, when we set c3 as 0.007 individually, it can be observed
that the baseline shrinks inward. Furthermore, Fig. 4(b) depicts the air-
foil space used for the dataset preparation, where all the design varia-
bles are limited in the range of [0.007, 0.007].
C. Aerodynamic coefficient prediction network
(ACPN)
In this section, the network architecture of the ACPN model is
first introduced, and then, the methods to prepare and process the
data for the training and testing are followed, and finally, the training
and evaluation methods are involved.
1. Network structure of ACPN
The specific network structure of the ACPN model is illustrated
in Fig. 5, composed of four FCN layers. The input of the ACPN is the
FIG. 5. Schematic structure of the ACPN model.
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof
two-dimensional coordinates depicting the airfoil profile, which are
generated by the improved Hicks–Henne bump functions. The output
is the lift and drag coefficients. In general, the functional mathematical
expression of the ACPN model is as follows:
ðCl ; Cd Þ ¼ f ðx; y; W; bÞ; (5)
where Cl and Cd indicate the lift and drag coefficient, respectively. (x,
y) represents the two-dimensional coordinates of the given airfoil
shape, and W and b are the weight and bias parameter matrix of the
ACPN model. It should be emphasized that W and b are the parame-
ters of the ACPN model to be trained and learned, with which the
ACPN model can be implemented to regress a nonlinear function f
28 August 2023 10:55:55
between the airfoil shape and its aerodynamic coefficients.
The network parameters of the ACPN model are presented in
Table I in detail, where neuron unit numbers in each fully connected
layer are given.
As depicted in Fig. 4, the connectivity pattern between two adja-
cent layers in a fully connected neural network is such that each neu-
ron in a given layer is connected to all the neurons of the previous
layer. Thus, the output of the l th fully connected layer is computed
by57
z ½l ¼ W ½l a½l1 þ b½l ; (6)
35, 085140-5
 Physics of Fluids ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof

TABLE I. ACPN model parameters of each fully connected layer. the f in Eq. (5) can be derived as follows if regarding L as the index of
the last layer:59
Layer name Executing operation/neuron Shape  
f ¼ W ½L r z ½L1 þ b½L ; (9)
Input  61  2
Flatten  132  1 where W ½L and b½L represent the weight and bias matrices of the last
FC1 Fully connected/1024 1024  1 layer, z ½L1 represents the output of the ðL  1Þ layer, and rðz ½L1 Þ
FC2 Fully connected/512 512  1 refers to the activated output. It can be deduced from Eq. (8) that the
FC3 Fully connected/64 64  1 ReLU function can avoid exponential operations during forward prop-
FC4 Fully connected/2 21 agation, and since its output is unsaturated, the problem of gradient
vanishing can be prevented during the backpropagation. Both advan-
Output Reshape 21
tages speed up the update of network parameters. In addition, the
backpropagation involves the update of network parameters W and b,
  which will be introduced in Sec. II C 3.
a½l ¼ r z ½l ; (7)
½l ½l
where W and b denote the weight and the bias, and z is the accu- ½l 2. Data preparation
mulated output value of the l th layer. Furthermore, to make the net- To ensure the reliability of the data fed into the ACPN model,
work deeper with sufficient nonlinear expression ability, each hidden CFD validation is conducted before preparing the data in batches. The
layer is activated by an active function, performed by rðÞ. a½l and a½l1 typical NACA0012 (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics)
are the active value of z ½l and z ½l1 , respectively. Specifically, the recti- 2D airfoil structure is adopted. To generate the hybrid mesh with
fied linear unit (ReLU) function is employed as the activation function boundary layers aligned on the airfoil surface, Gmsh is utilized. Gmsh
in this work, which can be mathematically described as follows:58 is an application programing interface (API) in Python that facilitates
 the creation of high-quality meshes for CFD simulations. To allevi-
x; x  0;
rðxÞ ¼ (8) ate the effect of the far-field boundary on the evolution of flow field
0; x < 0:
near the airfoil, the lengths in the perpendicular and chord direction
We input the airfoil coordinates at the first layer, and then, the forward are set to 40c and 100c, respectively, where c is the airfoil chord length.

28 August 2023 10:55:55

propagation of the ACPN model is executed by Eqs. (6)–(8). Thereby, Figure 6 illustrates the sketch of the entire computational domain and

FIG. 6. Schematic diagram of the calculation domain and mesh in the validation case.

Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954 35, 085140-6

Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids
the local region mesh with boundary layers in the sub-window. The
total number of grids in the computational domain is approximately
4  104.
The simulations are performed in OpenFOAM with the gener-
ated mesh, and the Spalart–Allmaras (SA) turbulence model is chosen
to solve the incompressible (Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes) RANS
equations.60 The operating conditions for the simulation are defined
as: the Mach number (Ma) is 0.15, the Reynolds number (Re) is
6  106, and the angle of attack (AOA) is 10 . The boundary condi-
tions on the SA turbulence field variable read61
~ wall ¼ 0; ~ farfield ¼ 4 fluid ;
where ~ wall and ~ farfield represent the modified viscosity of the SA
model for the wall and far-field, and  fluid is the kinematic viscosity of
fluid that is computed by U1 =Re. U1 is the far-field flow speed, and
Re denotes the dimensionless Reynolds number. Note that turbulent
kinematic viscosity values corresponding to these boundary conditions
are
 t; wall ¼ 0;  t;farfield ¼  fluid :
The initial velocity of the inlet and the outlet is set as the freestream
velocity U1 , and the corresponding initial kinematic pressure is set to
the freestream pressure zero. Moreover, to investigate the influence of
the calculation domain on the accuracy of the CFD results, we fol-
lowed the turbulence modeling resource of NASA Langley Research
Center and adopted the suggested C grid with the size of calculation
domain 500c  500c in OpenFOAM. The benchmark database for the
evaluation was obtained from Computational Fluids Laboratory-3D
(CFL3D)62 and wind tunnel experiments63 for three vital aerodynamic
performance parameters, i.e., the lift coefficient Cl , the drag coefficient
Cd , and the pressure coefficient Cp .
Table II presents the comparative results of the lift and drag coef-
ficients from four different data sources. It should be stated that the
relative errors are calculated concerning the experimental data as the
true value. The data suggest that the numerical simulation results
obtained with OpenFOAM agree well with both the experimental data
and the CFL3D results. Although, as expected, the relative errors of
the square grid are slightly higher than that of the C grid, they are both
within acceptable error ranges.
Furthermore, Fig. 7 shows the pressure distribution coefficient
for four data sources. It can be clearly seen that the results of
OpenFOAM are in good agreement with the experimental results,
TABLE II. Comparative results of lift and drag coefficients from various data sour-
ces: OpenFOAM-500  500: C grid of 500c  500c; OpenFOAM-40  40: square
grid of 100c  40c.
Relative error
Data sources Cl Cd Cl
Experiment 1.0809 0.0117 
CFL3D 1.0909 0.0123 0.93%
OpenFOAM-500  500 1.0820 0.0123 0.10%
OpenFOAM-100  40 1.1298 0.0129 4.52%
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE pubs.aip.org/aip/pof
(10)
FIG. 7. Pressure distribution coefficient from different data sources.
(11)
which proves the accuracy of the CFD simulation method with
OpenFOAM using the square grid of 100c  40c. In summary, we con-
clude that this CFD method can be applied to obtain reliable aerody-
namic data in subsequent calculations.
In this work, the NACA0012 airfoil is selected as the benchmark
airfoil and the airfoil shape optimization is performed under the con-
28 August 2023 10:55:55
ditions: the Mach number is 0.7, the Reynolds number is 7  106, and
the AOA is 3 . the LHS method is first utilized for the stratified sam-
pling of design variables ck in the range of [0.007, 0.007], thus gener-
ating 6000 sets of design variables. Then, the airfoil coordinates for
each set of these design variables are computed using the improved
Hicks–Henne bump function, and the corresponding mesh is gener-
ated by Gmsh. Subsequently, OpenFOAM conducts CFD simulations
on each airfoil to derive aerodynamic coefficients. Finally, the coordi-
nates of each airfoil and its corresponding aerodynamic coefficients
are grouped into one data, giving a total of 6000 such data. These are
then partitioned into three datasets: a training set with 3600 data, a
validation set with 1800 data, and a test set with 600 data.
3. Training and evaluation methods
The ACPN model in this work is trained by supervised learning,
which learns the mapping function between the airfoil geometry and
the aerodynamic coefficient. The core idea for training the ACPN is
the use of the Adam optimization algorithm64 to minimize the L2 loss
function, which is defined by the mean square error of the predicted
aerodynamic coefficients and the true aerodynamic coefficients, and
L2 regularization to restrain the norm of the network parameters, thus
avoiding overfitting.65 Hence, the loss function can be defined as
N h i
Cd 1X  
^ L  CL 2 þ C^ d  Cd 2 þ kkWk2 ;
J¼ C 2 (12)
N n¼1

5.13% where k is the regularization coefficient, N denotes the sampling num-
5.13% ber in the training dataset, and kkWk22 represents the L2 regularization
10.3% term. C^ L and C ^ d are the predicted lift and drag coefficients by the
ACPN model. During the backpropagation, the Adam algorithm
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utilizes the first and second moments to update the network 1. Objective functions
parameters64
The objective function is a crucial aspect of the optimization pro-
Vdh :¼ b1 Vdh þ ð1  b1 Þdh; (13) cess. In our study, the optimization goal is to maximize the airfoil’s lift
coefficient and simultaneously minimize the drag coefficient. To con-
Sdh :¼ b2 Sdh þ ð1  b2 Þdh2 ; (14)
vert the problem into a single objective, we introduce the ratio of lift
where h represents the network parameters W and b collectively as and drag coefficient, and two objective functions are investigated,
their updating rules are the same, dh and dh2 refer to the first and sec-
Cl
ond gradients of the loss function J with respect to h, b1 and b2 are f1 ðck Þ ¼ ; k ¼ 1; 2; …; 14; (19)
the exponential decay factors of the moment estimation, and Vdh and Cd
Sdh are the first and second moment estimations. Considering that Vdh Cl
f2 ðck Þ ¼ þ d ðCl  Cl r Þ; k ¼ 1; 2; …; 14: (20)
and Sdh will be biased toward zero during the updating process when Cd
they are initialized using zero vectors, to rectify these biases within The first objective function f1 directly equals the lift and drag coeffi-
each training iteration, the following corrections are applied: cient ratio. While the second objective function f2 adds one more pen-
Vdh alty term d ðCl  Cl r Þ to drive the lift coefficient Cl greater than
corrected
Vdh ¼ ; (15) Cl r , the lift coefficient of the original airfoil, whose value is 0.5. d is
1  bt1
the adjustment factor and is set to 500 in our study.
Sdh
Scorrected
dh ¼ ; (16)
1  bt2 2. Optimization procedure of GA-ACPN framework
where the superscript “t” of b denotes the exponential operator, and The optimization procedure of GA-ACPN for airfoil shape opti-
corrected
Vdh and Scorrected
dh denote the corrected first and second moments. mization in the study is summarized in Fig. 8; the details are in the fol-
Finally, the network parameters h are updated iteratively by lowing steps:
corrected
Vdh (a) First, the control points xk are selected, and the correspond-
h :¼ h  a qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi; (17)
Scorrected þ e ing ranges of design variable ck are determined. Then, accord-
dh
ing to binary encoding rules, the population of the first

28 August 2023 10:55:55

where a represents the learning rate, and e is a small value added to
avoid singularity. The learning technique of mini-batch gradient
descent is applied to accelerate the training phase and also to reduce
the probability that the training gets stuck at a saddle point.
To evaluate the predictive performance of the trained network
model, the relative error of the nth aerodynamic coefficient is defined
as
 
C^ n  Cn 
RE ¼  100%; (18)
Cn
where C ^ n and Cn denote the aerodynamic coefficients predicted by
the ACPN model and calculated by CFD, respectively, namely, the lift
coefficient or the drag coefficient.
We couple the trained and tested aerodynamic coefficient predic-
tion model with the classic GA optimization method for the optimiza-
tion design of airfoil shape; the entire detailed procedure is presented
in Sec. II D.
D. Aerodynamic optimization via GA-ACPN
framework
The objective of improving lift and other beneficial aerodynamic
characteristics while minimizing or sustaining drag and other unde-
sired features is actually a multi-objective optimization issue. In this
study, the multi-objective problem is simplified by converting it into a
single-objective formulation and maximize it with GA. In the follow-
ing, we first present the objective functions and the optimization pro-
cedure of GA-ACPN used in the study, and then four main genetic
operators involved are introduced, including binary encoding, cross-
over operators, mutation operators, and rank selection.
generation, that is the initial design variables, is randomly
initialized.
(b) Second, the new population is generated after the crossover
and mutation operations under respective probability. Then,
they are employed to generate the new airfoil shape using the
improved Hicks–Henne bump functions, namely, Eqs. (1)–
(4). Subsequently, the airfoil data are fed into the ACPN
model for calculating the lift and drag coefficients and the fit-
ness function.
(c) Finally, when an individual solution reaches the desired target
or the evolutionary generation exceeds the maximum limit,
the optimization procedure is terminated.
3. Genetic operators
Binary encoding, a commonly used encoding scheme, is selected
as the encoding rule, where each gene or chromosome is defined as a
string of 1 or 0, and each bit in this string denotes the characteristics of
an individual solution.66 Then, the design variables can be described as
follows:
X
2i
i¼p
ck ¼ ðck upper  ck lower Þ þ ck lower ; (21)
2L  1
where ck is the k th design variable, ck upper and ck lower denote the
upper and lower limits of ck , respectively, p represents the position of
1 in the chromosome sequence, and L refers to the length of the chro-
mosome. Figure 9 depicts an example of the binary encoding scheme.
Crossover operators are utilized to generate offspring by uniting
the genetic information from two or more parents. Specifically, we

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FIG. 8. The workflow diagram of the GA optimization method coupled with the ACPN model.

adopt the single-point crossover operator, randomly selecting a cross-
over point with a certain probability. Then, the genetic information
of the two parents beyond the point is swapped with each other.67
Figure 10 illustrates the scheme of the single-point crossover.
Mutation operators modify the values of some genes in a
genome. This work employs the simple inverse mutation operator
(SIM), which randomly specifies a real number to represent the posi-
tion to be mutated and then reverses the string at the position in an
individual solution.67
Selection is a crucial step in GA, which determines whether a
given string will participate in reproduction or not, and the con-
vergence rate of GA is greatly influenced by the selection pressure.

FIG. 9. Scheme of binary encoding.

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FIG. 10. Scheme of the single-point

crossover.

The rank selection technique utilizes the ranks given according to their
TABLE III. Hyperparameters setting of GA.
fitness values to endow each individual with a chance to be selected,
reducing the premature convergence probability of the solution to a
Description Value
local minimum.67
Binary encoding length 10 The used hyperparameters of the GA are summarized in Table III.
Population size 60
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Crossover probability 0.9
Mutation probability 0.01 A. Hyperparameters analysis of the ACPN model
Evolutionary generations 400 This subsection focuses on investigating the impact of two crucial
hyperparameters, namely, the learning rate and the mini-batch size,

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FIG. 11. Convergence history under different sets of hyperparameters (smoothened by the exponential weighted moving average and presented in the dark colors): (a) various
learning rates with a batch size of 64, (b) various mini-batch sizes with a learning rate of 0.001, and (c) various training data size.

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 Physics of Fluids
TABLE IV. Comparison of testing accuracy of the ACPN model with different training
data sizes.
Number of training data CL Cd Average
1000 99.02% 98.53% 98.78%
3000 98.99% 98.75% 98.87%
6000 99.16% 98.88% 99.02%
on the convergence performance of the proposed ACPN model.
We conducted a study considering various combinations of these
hyperparameters values. Figures 11(a) and 11(b) illustrate the results,
where the red lines stand for the reference combination. In the refer-
ence combination, the learning rate is set to 0.001, and the mini-batch
size is 64. Additionally, two more values of the learning rate, one
before and the other after 0.001 with a batch size of 64 are studied in
Fig. 11(a), and similarly, two more results with the learning rate of
0.001 are investigated in Fig. 11(b). Moreover, the influence of the size
of training data is shown in Fig. 11(c), where “N” denotes the training
data size.
Figure 11(a) shows both the training and validation accuracy
curves with the three learning rates (abbreviated as “lr” in the figure).
Clearly, all curves of the three learning rates rapidly increase in the first
2000 epochs, and then, the growth becomes slow until the end of train-
ing. The learning rate of 0.001 results in the highest accuracy. In addi-
tion, for each learning rate, the validation accuracy climbs following
the training accuracy, and both converge at the same level.
The convergence curves with the three mini-batch sizes are dis-
played in Fig. 11(b). Comparing them to the reference value of 64, it is
observed that the smaller mini-batch size of 32 exhibits larger gradient
oscillations between adjacent epochs, which hinders the model’s conver-
gence. On the other hand, a larger mini-batch size of 128 accelerates the
initial learning process, but it makes learning more easily get caught in a
local optimum. As a result, the training process is slowed, and additional
training epochs are needed to reach higher accuracy. Finally, 0.001 is
adopted for the learning rate, and 64 is set for the batch size in this
work. As for the influence of training data size, it can be observed from
Fig. 11(c) that the ACPN model trained with 6000 samples showcases
the most stable convergence performance and the highest training and
FIG. 12. The prediction example of aerodynamic coefficients using the trained and tested ACPN model.
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
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validation accuracy. The generalization ability of the ACPN model
under the three cases will be given in Table IV (Sec. III B).
B. Prediction performance of the ACPN model
Following the methodology given in Sec. II C 2, the network was
trained, and the hyperparameters were identified in Sec. III A. This
subsection compares the aerodynamic coefficients predicted by the
trained ACPN model and the CFD results (the ground truth), where
the prediction performance of the ACPN model is evaluated by calcu-
lating the relative errors using Eq. (18). Unlike the training process,
the network parameters remain fixed and are reloaded during the eval-
uation period. At this stage, the ACPN model can be treated as a
purely nonlinear mapping function. In order to employ the trained
ACPN model to predict aerodynamic coefficients, referencing the
input and output of the ACPN model, the design variables need to be
first sampled, followed by generating airfoil coordinates according to
the Hick–Henne parameterization method. Finally, fed it into the
ACPN model, the forward propagation figures out the corresponding
aerodynamic coefficients. The prediction example of aerodynamic
coefficients is shown in Fig. 12. Following the same approach, the
batch predicted aerodynamic coefficients can be obtained, and the pre-
diction performance of the ACPN model will be evaluated below.
Figures 13(a) and 13(b), respectively, depict the predicted lift and
drag coefficients of the proposed model. In the left column of the fig-
ure, it can be observed that the majority of samples align closely with
the line of y ¼ x, signifying a strong agreement between the ACPN
28 August 2023 10:55:55
model’s predictions and the reference results from the CFD simula-
tions. Additionally, the right column of the figure displays the error
distribution density map, which reveals that the absolute values of rela-
tive errors for the majority of samples are below 3.0% and 2.0% for lift
and drag coefficients, respectively. Notably, there is a slight concentra-
tion in the range between 2% and 1% for the drag coefficient,
which could be attributed to the uneven distribution of the drag coeffi-
cient values in the test data. Nevertheless, as shown in Table IV, the
overall prediction accuracy for both lift and drag coefficients remains
remarkably high at 99.16% and 98.88%, respectively. However, the
testing accuracy corresponding to less data is lower than that.
Therefore, we prepared 6000 samples for constructing the ACPN
model to ensure the correctness of the subsequent optimization, which
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FIG. 13. Comparison of the true (CFD) and predicted lift and drag coefficients on the test dataset: (a) CL and (b) Cd .

needs to explore the huge airfoil space, although the mapping from 50% of the relative errors in lift coefficient prediction fall within the
61  2 airfoil coordinates to 2  1 aerodynamic coefficient is simple. range of 1.48%–0.4%, while approximately 50% of the relative errors
Figure 14 intuitively demonstrates the relative error distribution in drag coefficient prediction are concentrated between 1.15% and
for the lift and drag coefficients. It can be observed that approximately 0.48%. Moreover, the absolute values of relative errors do not exceed

FIG. 14. Relative errors of the predicted

lift and drag coefficients on the test data-
set: (a) CL and (b) Cd .

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TABLE V. Comparison of the time cost for the lift and drag coefficient predictions by TABLE VI. Ranges of design variables.
the ACPN model and the CFD simulation.
Design variables Range Design variables Range
Method Data preparation Training cost Prediction cost
c1 [0.007, 0.007] c8 [0.007, 0.007]
CFD   3 min c2 [0.006, 0.006] c9 [0.006, 0.006]
ACPN (GPU) 50 h 20 s 5 ms c3 [0.004, 0.006] c10 [0.006, 0.004]
c4 [0.004, 0.007] c11 [0.007, 0.004]
c5 [0.005, 0.005] c12 [0.005, 0.005]
3.8% for both coefficient predictions. These findings suggest that the c6 [0.005, 0.005] c13 [0.005, 0.005]
predicted aerodynamic coefficients by the ACPN model can replace
c7 [0.006, 0.006] c14 [0.006, 0.006]
the CFD results for subsequent airfoil shape optimization and
design.
In addition to the high accuracy prediction level, the proposed
ACPN model also shows its extreme prediction speed, as seen in C. Optimization results via GA-ACPN framework
Table V. Although 50 h are required for the data preparation, it takes In this subsection, our focus lies on conducting an effectiveness
only 20 s to train the ACPN model, and then, only 5 ms are required test of the proposed GA-ACPN framework. The ranges of design vari-
for each prediction using the graphics processing unit (GPU) RTX ables ck are listed in Table VI. Moreover, to validate the reliability of
3080. The prediction time is four orders of magnitude faster compared the GA-APCN framework, the same optimization framework but with
to the CFD solver, so once the ACPN model replaces the CFD simula- the CFD simulator is performed to provide the referential optimized
tor, the computational time for aerodynamic design and optimization aerodynamic coefficients.
will be significantly saved. Additionally, our previous work35 have The GA-ACPN and GA-CFD optimization procedures are exe-
pointed out that compared with the Kriging model that needs to spend cuted for airfoil shape optimization. Figures 15 and 16 compare their
5179 s for training, deep learning based surrogate models only take a convergence histories throughout the optimization process using
very short time of 54 s, three time orders of magnitude faster than the objective functions 1 and 2 in Sec. II D 1, respectively. As seen from
traditional surrogate model. Furthermore, in comparison to our previ- the left column of the two figures, the fitness scores of different popu-
ous work,35 the FCN-based surrogate model developed in this study lations among each generation vary greatly at first, then climb rapidly,

28 August 2023 10:55:55

offers the advantages of a lightweight network structure, which helps and gradually converge in the last generations. At the same time, as
to further reduce both training and usage costs. illustrated in the right column of the two figures, the lift and drag

FIG. 15. Convergence history and Cl, Cd evolution using the objective function 1 (the average fitness score is in deep red): (a) GA-ACPN and (b) GA-CFD.

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FIG. 16. Convergence history and Cl, Cd evolution using the objective function 2 (the average fitness score is in deep red): (a) GA-ACPN and (b) GA-CFD.

coefficients, along with optimization target the lift–drag coefficient
ratio, increase with generations. These results signify that the optimal
airfoil shape satisfying both the geometric constraints and functional
requirements can be found by iterating the optimization process.
However, it cannot be ignored that the final lift and drag coeffi-
cients of the airfoils optimized by GA-ACPN and GA-CFD methods
are not exactly the same, as shown in Table VII; the reason may come
from the unknown randomness brought by the random initialization
of GA process. First of all, we can see that both the GA-ACPN and
GA-CFD methods drive the lift–drag ratio to a similar level, 51.4%
and 50.3% increment, respectively, using the first objective function,
and 55.4% and 60.0% with the second. It is apparent that the second
objective function gives a higher lift–drag ratio, where compared with
the first objective function, the only difference is that we add a penalty
term to lead the lift coefficient of the optimized airfoil shape to greater
than that of the original one. Therefore, the optimized lift coefficients
using the second function are both higher than 0.5076, while with the
first objective function, the final lift coefficients are not, indicating that
the optimization process may have been stuck in a local optimum.
Figure 17 compares the optimized airfoil shapes with the GA-
ACPN and GA-CFD methods. It is noted that the optimized airfoils
using the two methods for objective function 1 are slightly different
while very close for objective function 2; the reason may be some
uncertain randomness when initializing the population and slight
deviation between ACPN predicted and CFD simulated aerodynamic
coefficients. Therefore, the optimized airfoil shapes using GA-ACPN
and GA-CFD methods are inconsistent. Even so, these results still con-
firm the effectiveness of the method coupling the proposed ACPN
model with optimization algorithms.
Figure 18 illustrates the pressure distribution on the airfoil sur-
face before and after optimization by GA-ACPN and GA-CFD meth-
ods. For objective function 1, the two results slightly deviate from each
other, whereas for objective function 2, they are in good agreement,
which is consistent with the previous results of optimized airfoil

TABLE VII. Comparison of optimization results under two objective functions.

Case Method CL Cd CL =Cd Increment

Original  0.507 600 0.006 770 0 74.900 

Objective 1 GA-ACPN 0.467 642 0.004 123 4 113.410 51.4%
GA-CFD 0.451 523 0.004 012 1 112.539 50.3%
Objective 2 GA-ACPN 0.510 117 0.004 383 6 116.369 55.4%
GA-CFD 0.549 067 0.004 581 4 119.847 60.0%

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 Physics of Fluids
FIG. 17. Comparison of optimized airfoils: (a) objective function 1 and (b) objective function 2.
shapes. Furthermore, it can be clearly seen that either for objective
function 1 or 2, the upper surface pressure variation between the refer-
ence airfoil and the optimized airfoil nearly equals the inverse value of
that of the corresponding lower surface, as the airfoil thickness of the
design points is constrained to be unchanged and thereby the displace-
ments of the upper surface and lower surface are equal. In addition,
the optimized pressure difference has a sudden increase near the air-
foil’s trailing edge compared to the original one. The underlying rea-
son for these phenomena is that the modification in geometric airfoil
shape at 90% of the chord length, causing changes in the flow: the
high-pressure region on the pressure surface of the optimized airfoil
moves forward to the chord length of 90% and the low-pressure region
on the suction surface moves backward to that position, which can be
observed from the pressure contours of 2000 and 4000 Pa in Fig. 19(c).
Generally, the increment in the pressure difference between the upper
and lower airfoil surface is favorable for improving the lift force.
Therefore, the above results illustrate the effectiveness of the optimiza-
tion procedure.
In addition, as shown in Figs. 19 and 20, the comparison of the
velocity and pressure contours for the original airfoil, the GA-
ACPN, and GA-CFD optimized airfoils shows the shock occurrence
and the weakening on the airfoils. Concretely, it is obviously seen
from Fig. 20 that the velocity around the lower surface of the airfoil
increases after optimization, and the flow velocity of the low-
pressure region on the upper surface decreases. Consequently, the
FIG. 18. Comparison of pressure distributions: (a) objective function 1 and (b) objective function 2.
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
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pressure near these areas is weakened and strengthened, as shown in
Fig. 19, resulting in an enlarged pressure difference (see Fig. 18). These
changes contribute to an increased lift force and an improved overall
aerodynamic performance of the airfoil. Furthermore, the pressure varia-
tion at the airfoil’s trailing edge also gains favorable aerodynamic
performance.
Turning now to the computational time analysis, it is worth men-
tioning that although it takes about 50 h to construct the ACPN
model, this timeframe is acceptable for building the high effective
ACPN predictor as the GA-ACPN method can obtain the optimiza-
tion results within 25 s while the GA-CFD method has to spend about
28 August 2023 10:55:55
5.5 days (using parallel computing with six-core CPU), reducing the
computational cost by a remarkable 62.1%. Therefore, we can con-
clude that replacing the CFD simulation with the ACPN model greatly
reduces the time cost and improves the efficiency of aerodynamic opti-
mization and design (Table VIII).
IV. CONCLUSION
This work develops an innovative optimization process for air-
foils based on the core idea of developing an aerodynamic coefficient
prediction model using a deep fully connected neural network and
then coupling it with the GA optimization method. The improved
Hicks–Henne bump functions are adopted to parameterize the airfoil
geometries throughout aerodynamic coefficient modeling and airfoil
shape optimization. The results can be drawn as follows:
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 Physics of Fluids
FIG. 19. Comparison of pressure contours (unit: Pa): (a) original, (b) objective function 1, and (c) objective function 2.
• The trained and tested ACPN model demonstrates a high accu-
racy in predicting the lift and drag coefficients, achieving approx-
imately 99.02%. Furthermore, each coefficient prediction takes
only 5 ms, four orders of magnitude faster than using the CFD
solver.
• The proposed GA-APCN optimization framework can improve
the lift–drag ratio by 51.4% in just 25 s, while 50.3% improve-
ment is achieved by the GA-CFD optimization approach with 5.5
days, 19 000 times slower than the GA-APCN method. Despite it
takes additional 50 h and 20 s for data preparing and model
training, the GA-ACPN framework still leads to an impressive
62.1% reduction in the overall calculation cost.
• Moreover, when constraints were imposed on the lift coefficient,
the GA-ACPN optimization framework can still fast optimize the
airfoil shape, achieving a comparable increment in the lift–drag
ratio with the GA-CFD optimization.
Phys. Fluids 35, 085140 (2023); doi: 10.1063/5.0160954
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In summary, the proposed GA-ACPN optimization technique
largely improves the efficiency of classic aerodynamic shape optimiza-
tion and at the same time, assures the optimization effect, showing its
great advantages and huge potential for fast aerodynamic design and
optimization. Furthermore, these results suggest that it has great
potential to address the optimization problems with varying con-
straints for the same flow condition.
In addition, the optimization method in this paper is applicable
in other similar research since the essence of current work is to con-
struct a data-driven surrogate model for fast and accurate perfor-
mance estimation of the complex systems. Then, by replacing the
CFD solver in a traditional optimization framework with the surro-
gate model, we can fast optimize the performance of the system.
Therefore, as long as the optimization framework uses a CFD solver
to do the evaluation, the proposed method can improve the optimi-
zation efficiency.
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FIG. 20. Comparison of velocity contours (unit: m/s): (a) original, (b) objective function 1, and (c) objective function 2.

However, the surrogate model constructed in this work is based
on the data from one specified flow condition. Therefore, using this
model as the simulation tool, the current optimization framework can
only achieve efficient aerodynamic shape optimization under the
TABLE VIII. Comparison of time components consumed by different optimization
framework.
specific flow condition. Suppose we want extent this approach to other
flow conditions. In that case, the focus should be on developing an
ACPN model that can accurately predict the aerodynamic coefficient
for diverse flow conditions, which is an aspect of our future work. The
related research includes the dataset design for different flow condi-
tions, training the model efficiently with big datasets, etc.

Model construction ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Data Training Optimization Time This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation
Method preparation cost time reduction of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20201302), the Key Laboratory of
Thermal Management and Energy Utilization of Aircraft, Ministry
CFD   5.5 days  of Industry and Information Technology (Grant No.
(6 threads) CEPE2022016), and the State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and
ACPN (GPU) 50 h 20 s 25 s 62.1% Control for Aerospace Structures (Nanjing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics) (Grant No. MCMS-E-0323Y01).

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 Physics of Fluids
AUTHOR DECLARATIONS
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflicts to disclose.
Author Contributions
Mingyu Wu: Investigation (equal); Software (equal). Xinyi Yuan:
Visualization (equal). Zhihua Chen: Supervision (equal). Weitao Wu:
Resources (equal); Validation (equal). Yue Hua: Writing – review &
editing (equal). Nadine Aubry: Writing – review & editing (equal).
DATA AVAILABILITY
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were
created or analyzed in this study.
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