This open access book introduces and explains machine learning (ML) algorithms and techniques developed for statistical inferences on a complex process or system and their applications to simulations of chemically reacting turbulent flows. These two fields, ML and turbulent combustion, have large body of work and knowledge on their own, and this book brings them together and explain the complexities and challenges involved in applying ML techniques to simulate and study reacting flows. This is important as to the world’s total primary energy supply (TPES), since more than 90% of this supply is through combustion technologies and the non-negligible effects of combustion on environment. Although alternative technologies based on renewable energies are coming up, their shares for the TPES is are less than 5% currently and one needs a complete paradigm shift to replace combustion sources. Whether this is practical or not is entirely a different question, and an answer to this question depends on the respondent. However, a pragmatic analysis suggests that the combustion share to TPES is likely to be more than 70% even by 2070. Hence, it will be prudent to take advantage of ML techniques to improve combustion sciences and technologies so that efficient and “greener” combustion systems that are friendlier to the environment can be designed. The book covers the current state of the art in these two topics and outlines the challenges involved, merits and drawbacks of using ML for turbulent combustion simulations including avenues which can be explored to overcome the challenges. The required mathematical equations and backgrounds are discussed with ample references for readers to find further detail if they wish. This book is unique since there is not any book with similar coverage of topics, ranging from big data analysis and machine learning algorithm to their applications for combustion science and system design for energy generation.

This book presents methodologies for analysing large data sets produced by the direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulence and combustion. It describes the development of models that can be used to analyse large eddy simulations, and highlights both the most common techniques and newly emerging ones. The chapters, written by internationally respected experts, invite readers to consider DNS of turbulence and combustion from a formal, data-driven standpoint, rather than one led by experience and intuition. This perspective allows readers to recognise the shortcomings of existing models, with the ultimate goal of quantifying and reducing model-based uncertainty. In addition, recent advances in machine learning and statistical inferences offer new insights on the interpretation of DNS data. The book will especially benefit graduate-level students and researchers in mechanical and aerospace engineering, e.g. those with an interest in general fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, and the environmental and atmospheric sciences.

This is the first textbook on a generally applicable control strategy for turbulence and other complex nonlinear systems. The approach of the book employs powerful methods of machine learning for optimal nonlinear control laws. This machine learning control (MLC) is motivated and detailed in Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapter 3, methods of linear control theory are reviewed. In Chapter 4, MLC is shown to reproduce known optimal control laws for linear dynamics (LQR, LQG). In Chapter 5, MLC detects and exploits a strongly nonlinear actuation mechanism of a low-dimensional dynamical system when linear control methods are shown to fail. Experimental control demonstrations from a laminar shear-layer to turbulent boundary-layers are reviewed in Chapter 6, followed by general good practices for experiments in Chapter 7. The book concludes with an outlook on the vast future applications of MLC in Chapter 8. Matlab codes are provided for easy reproducibility of the presented results. The book includes interviews with leading researchers in turbulence control (S. Bagheri, B. Batten, M. Glauser, D. Williams) and machine learning (M. Schoenauer) for a broader perspective. All chapters have exercises and supplemental videos will be available through YouTube.

Introduces advanced mathematical tools for the modeling, simulation, and analysis of chemical non-equilibrium phenomena in combustion and flows, following a detailed explanation of the basics of thermodynamics and chemical kinetics of reactive mixtures. Researchers, practitioners, lecturers, and graduate students will find this work valuable.

Unmanned systems are one of the fastest-growing and widely developing technologies in the world, offering many possibilities for a variety of research fields. This book comprises the proceedings of the 2022 International Symposium on Unmanned Systems and the Defense Industry (ISUDEF), a multi-disciplinary conference on a broad range of current research and issues in areas such as autonomous technology, unmanned aircraft technologies, avionics, radar systems, air defense, aerospace robotics and mechatronics, and aircraft technology design. ISUDEF allows researchers, scientists, engineers, practitioners, policymakers, and students to exchange information, present new technologies and developments, and discuss future direction, strategies, and priorities in the field of autonomous vehicles and unmanned aircraft technologies.