All issues

This paper is devoted to the application of the method of numerical solution of the Boltzmann equation for the solution of the problem of modeling the behavior of radionuclides in the cavity of the interelectric gap of a multielement electrogenerating channel. The analysis of gas-kinetic processes of thermionic converters is important for proving the design of the power-generating channel. The paper reviews two constructive schemes of the channel: with one- and two-way withdrawal of gaseous fission products into a vacuum-cesium system. The analysis uses a two-dimensional transport equation of the second-order accuracy for the solution of the left-hand side and the projection method for solving the right-hand side — the collision integral. In the course of the work, a software package was implemented that makes it possible to calculate on the cluster architecture by using the algorithm of parallelizing the left-hand side of the equation; the paper contains the results of the analysis of the dependence of the calculation efficiency on the number of parallel nodes. The paper contains calculations of data on the distribution of pressures of gaseous fission products in the gap cavity, calculations use various sets of initial pressures and flows; the dependency of the radionuclide pressure in the collector region was determined as a function of cesium pressures at the ends of the gap. The tests in the loop channel of a nuclear reactor confirm the obtained results.

The study of complex processes in various spheres of human activity is traditionally based on the use of mathematical models. In modern conditions, the development and application of such models is greatly simplified by the presence of high-speed computer equipment and specialized tools that allow, in fact, designing models from pre-prepared modules. Despite this, the known problems associated with ensuring the adequacy of the model, the reliability of the original data, the implementation in practice of the simulation results, the excessively large dimension of the original data, the joint application of sufficiency heterogeneous mathematical models in terms of complexity and integration of the simulated processes are becoming increasingly important. The more critical may be the external constraints imposed on the value of the optimized functional, and often unattainable within the framework of the constructed model. It is logical to assume that in order to fulfill these restrictions, a purposeful transformation of the original model is necessary, that is, the transition to a mathematical model with a deliberately improved solution. The new model will obviously have a different internal structure (a set of parameters and their interrelations), as well as other formats (areas of definition) of the source data. The possibilities of purposeful change of the initial model investigated by the authors are based on the realization of the idea of strategic reflection. The most difficult in mathematical terms practical implementation of the author's idea is the use of simulation models, for which the algorithms for finding optimal solutions have known limitations, and the study of sensitivity in most cases is very difficult. On the example of consideration of rather standard discrete- event simulation model the article presents typical methodological techniques that allow ranking variable parameters by sensitivity and, in the future, to expand the scope of definition of variable parameter to which the simulation model is most sensitive. In the transition to the “improved” model, it is also possible to simultaneously exclude parameters from it, the influence of which on the optimized functional is insignificant, and vice versa — the introduction of new parameters corresponding to real processes into the model.

The study completes a series of the author’s works devoted to the spread of particles population in supercritical catalytic branching random walk (CBRW) on a multidimensional lattice. The CBRW model describes the evolution of a system of particles combining their random movement with branching (reproduction and death) which only occurs at fixed points of the lattice. The set of such catalytic points is assumed to be finite and arbitrary. In the supercritical regime the size of population, initiated by a parent particle, increases exponentially with positive probability. The rate of the spread depends essentially on the distribution tails of the random walk jump. If the jump distribution has “light tails”, the “population front”, formed by the particles most distant from the origin, moves linearly in time and the limiting shape of the front is a convex surface. When the random walk jump has independent coordinates with a semiexponential distribution, the population spreads with a power rate in time and the limiting shape of the front is a star-shape nonconvex surface. So far, for regularly varying tails (“heavy” tails), we have considered the problem of scaled front propagation assuming independence of components of the random walk jump. Now, without this hypothesis, we examine an “isotropic” case, when the rate of decay of the jumps distribution in different directions is given by the same regularly varying function. We specify the probability that, for time going to infinity, the limiting random set formed by appropriately scaled positions of population particles belongs to a set $B$ containing the origin with its neighborhood, in $\mathbb{R}^d$. In contrast to the previous results, the random cloud of particles with normalized positions in the time limit will not concentrate on coordinate axes with probability one.

The work is dedicated to investigation of possibility to increase the efficiency of solving external aerodynamic problems. Methodical questions of using locally-adaptive grids and wall functions for numerical simulation of turbulent flows past flying vehicles are studied. Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations are integrated. The equations are closed by standard $k–\varepsilon$ turbulence model. Subsonic turbulent flow of perfect compressible viscous gas past airfoil RAE 2822 is considered. Calculations are performed in CFD software FlowVision. The efficiency of using the technology of smoothing diffusion fluxes and the Bradshaw formula for turbulent viscosity is analyzed. These techniques are regarded as means of increasing the accuracy of solving aerodynamic problems on locally-adaptive grids. The obtained results show that using the technology of smoothing diffusion fluxes essentially decreases the discrepancy between computed and experimental values of the drag coefficient. In addition, the distribution of the skin friction coefficient over the curvilinear surface of the airfoil becomes more regular. These results indicate that the given technology is an effective way to increase the accuracy of calculations on locally-adaptive grids. The Bradshaw formula for the dynamic coefficient of turbulent viscosity is traditionally used in the SST $k–\omega$ turbulence model. The possibility to implement it in the standard $k–\varepsilon$ turbulence model is investigated in the present article. The calculations show that this formula provides good agreement of integral aerodynamic characteristics and the distribution of the pressure coefficient over the airfoil surface with experimental data. Besides that, it essentially augments the accuracy of simulation of the flow in the boundary layer and in the wake. On the other hand, using the Bradshaw formula in the simulation of the air flow past airfoil RAE 2822 leads to under-prediction of the skin friction coefficient. For this reason, the conclusion is made that practical use of the Bradshaw formula requires its preliminary validation and calibration on reliable experimental data available for the considered flows. The results of the work as a whole show that using the technologies discussed in numerical solution of external aerodynamic problems on locally-adaptive grids together with wall functions provides the computational accuracy acceptable for quick assessment of the aerodynamic characteristics of a flying vehicle. So, one can deduce that the FlowVision software is an effective tool for preliminary design studies, for conceptual design, and for aerodynamic shape optimization.

Recently, saddle point problems have received much attention due to their powerful modeling capability for a lot of problems from diverse domains. Applications of these problems occur in many applied areas, such as robust optimization, distributed optimization, game theory, and many applications in machine learning such as empirical risk minimization and generative adversarial networks training. Therefore, many researchers have actively worked on developing numerical methods for solving saddle point problems in many different settings. This paper is devoted to developing a numerical method for solving saddle point problems in the nonconvex uniformly-concave setting. We study a general class of saddle point problems with composite structure and H\"older-continuous higher-order derivatives. To solve the problem under consideration, we propose an approach in which we reduce the problem to a combination of two auxiliary optimization problems separately for each group of variables, the outer minimization problem w.r.t. primal variables, and the inner maximization problem w.r.t the dual variables. For solving the outer minimization problem, we use the Adaptive Gradient Method, which is applicable for nonconvex problems and also works with an inexact oracle that is generated by approximately solving the inner problem. For solving the inner maximization problem, we use the Restarted Unified Acceleration Framework, which is a framework that unifies the high-order acceleration methods for minimizing a convex function that has H\"older-continuous higher-order derivatives. Separate complexity bounds are provided for the number of calls to the first-order oracles for the outer minimization problem and higher-order oracles for the inner maximization problem. Moreover, the complexity of the whole proposed approach is then estimated.

The work is devoted to numerical modeling of two-phase flows, namely, the calculation of supersonic flow around a blunt body by a viscous gas flow with an admixture of large high inertia particles. The system of unsteady Navier – Stokes equations is numerically solved by the meshless method. It uses the cloud of points in space to represent the fields of gas parameters. The spatial derivatives of gas parameters and functions are approximated by the least square method to calculate convective and viscous fluxes in the Navier – Stokes system of equations. The convective fluxes are calculated by the HLLC method. The third-order MUSCL reconstruction scheme is used to achieve high order accuracy. The viscous fluxes are calculated by the second order approximation scheme. The streamlined body surface is represented by a model of an isothermal wall. It implements the conditions for the zero velocity and zero pressure gradient, which is also modeled using the least squares method.

Every moving body is surrounded by its own cloud of points belongs to body’s domain and moving along with it in space. The explicit three-sage Runge–Kutta method is used to solve numerically the system of gas dynamics equations in the main coordinate system and local coordinate systems of each particle.

Two methods for the moving objects modeling with reverse impact on the gas flow have been implemented. The first one uses stationary point clouds with fixed neighbors within the same domain. When regions overlap, some nodes of one domain, for example, the boundary nodes of the particle domain, are excluded from the calculation and filled with the values of gas parameters from the nearest nodes of another domain using the least squares approximation of gradients. The internal nodes of the particle domain are used to reconstruct the gas parameters in the overlapped nodes of the main domain. The second method also uses the exclusion of nodes in overlapping areas, but in this case the nodes of another domain take the place of the excluded neighbors to build a single connected cloud of nodes. At the same time, some of the nodes are moving, and some are stationary. Nodes membership to different domains and their relative speed are taken into account when calculating fluxes.

The results of modeling the motion of a particle in a stationary gas and the flow around a stationary particle by an incoming flow at the same relative velocity show good agreement for both presented methods.

We consider a finite-dimensional optimization problem, the formulation of which in addition to the required variables contains parameters. The solution to this problem is a dependence of optimal values of variables on parameters. In general, these dependencies are not functions because they can have ambiguous meanings and in the functional case be nondifferentiable. In addition, their domain of definition may be narrower than the domains of definition of functions in the condition of the original problem. All these properties make it difficult to solve both the original parametric problem and other tasks, the statement of which includes these dependencies. To overcome these difficulties, usually methods such as non-differentiable optimization are used.

This article proposes an alternative approach that makes it possible to obtain solutions to parametric problems in a form devoid of the specified properties. It is shown that such representations can be explored using standard algorithms, based on the Taylor formula. This form is a function smoothly approximating the solution of the original problem for any parameter values, specified in its statement. In this case, the value of the approximation error is controlled by a special parameter. Construction of proposed approximations is performed using special functions that establish feedback (within optimality conditions for the original problem) between variables and Lagrange multipliers. This method is described for linear problems with subsequent generalization to the nonlinear case.

From a computational point of view the construction of the approximation consists in finding the saddle point of the modified Lagrange function of the original problem. Moreover, this modification is performed in a special way using feedback functions. It is shown that the necessary conditions for the existence of such a saddle point are similar to the conditions of the Karush – Kuhn – Tucker theorem, but do not contain constraints such as inequalities and conditions of complementary slackness. Necessary conditions for the existence of a saddle point determine this approximation implicitly. Therefore, to calculate its differential characteristics, the implicit function theorem is used. The same theorem is used to reduce the approximation error to an acceptable level.

Features of the practical implementation feedback function method, including estimates of the rate of convergence to the exact solution are demonstrated for several specific classes of parametric optimization problems. Specifically, tasks searching for the global extremum of functions of many variables and the problem of multiple extremum (maximin-minimax) are considered. Optimization problems that arise when using multicriteria mathematical models are also considered. For each of these classes, there are demo examples.

In the paper we construct the adjoint problem for the explicit and implicit parabolic quazi-linear grid boundary-value problems with one spatial variable; the coefficients of the problems depend on the solution at the same time and earlier times. Dependence on the history of the solution is via the state vector; its evolution is described by the differential equation. Many models of diffusion mass transport are reduced to such boundary-value problems. Having solutions to the direct and adjoint problems, one can obtain the exact value of the gradient of a functional in the space of parameters the problem also depends on. We present solving algorithms, including the parallel one.

Mathematical simulation of natural convection and surface radiation in a square air enclosure having isothermal vertical walls with a local heat source of constant temperature has been carried out. Mathematical model has been formulated on the basis of the dimensionless variables such as stream function, vorticity and temperature by using the Boussinesq approximation and diathermancy of air. Distributions of streamlines and isotherms reflecting an effect of Rayleigh number $ 10^3 \leqslant Ra \leqslant 10^6 $, surface emissivity $0 \leqslant ε < 1$, ratio between the length of heat source and the size of enclosure $0.2 \leqslant l/L \leqslant 0.6$ and dimensionless time $0 \leqslant τ \leqslant 100$ on fluid flow and heat transfer have been obtained. Correlations for the average heat transfer coefficient in dependence on $Ra$, $ε$ and $l/L$ have been ascertained.

We investigate machine learning methods with a certain kind of decision rule. In particular, inverse-distance method of interpolation, method of interpolation by radial basis functions, the method of multidimensional interpolation and approximation, based on the theory of random functions, the last method of interpolation is kriging. This paper shows a method of rapid retraining “model” when adding new data to the existing ones. The term “model” means interpolating or approximating function constructed from the training data. This approach reduces the computational complexity of constructing an updated “model” from $O(n^3)$ to $O(n^2)$. We also investigate the possibility of a rapid assessment of generalizing opportunities “model” on the training set using the method of cross-validation leave-one-out cross-validation, eliminating the major drawback of this approach — the necessity to build a new “model” for each element which is removed from the training set.