PulseExploreJournal ClubDebatesTrendingResearchersJournals
Instagram
HomeExploreJournal ClubTrending
Synapse
⌘+K
Synapse
February 21, 2026Journal of Fluid Mechanics8 citationsOpen Access

Conditional flow matching for generative modelling of near-wall turbulence with quantified uncertainty

MPMeet Hemant ParikhXFXiantao FanJWJian-Xun Wang

Key Points

  • The central aim is to develop a generative modelling framework for reconstructing near-wall turbulence while quantifying uncertainty.
  • Introduced a generative model using conditional flow matching for turbulence synthesis.
  • Employed a probabilistic forward operator trained with stochastic weight-averaging Gaussian.
  • Enabled zero-shot conditional generation without the need for model re-training.
  • Successfully recovered realistic turbulence structures across the near-wall region.
  • Adapted effectively to various sensor configurations, including sparse and low-resolution measurements.
  • Outperformed classical methods in generalisation to unseen realisations and resilience under measurement sparsity.

Abstract

Reconstructing near-wall turbulence from wall-based measurements is a critical yet inherently ill-posed problem in wall-bounded flows, where limited sensing and spatially heterogeneous flow–wall coupling challenge deterministic estimation strategies. To address this, we introduce a novel generative modelling framework based on conditional flow matching for synthesising instantaneous velocity fluctuation fields from wall observations, with explicit quantification of predictive uncertainty. Our method integrates continuous-time flow matching with a probabilistic forward operator trained using stochastic weight-averaging Gaussian, enabling zero-shot conditional generation without model re-training. We demonstrate that the proposed approach not only recovers physically realistic, statistically consistent turbulence structures across the near-wall region but also effectively adapts to various sensor configurations, including sparse, incomplete and low-resolution wall measurements. The model achieves robust uncertainty-aware reconstruction, preserving flow intermittency and structure even under significantly degraded observability. Compared with classical linear stochastic estimation and deterministic convolutional neural network methods, our stochastic generative learning framework exhibits superior generalisation for unseen realisations under same flow conditions and resilience under measurement sparsity with quantified uncertainty. This work establishes a robust semi-supervised generative modelling paradigm for data-consistent flow reconstruction and lays the foundation for uncertainty-aware, sensor-driven modelling of wall-bounded turbulence.

Ask AI
Helpful
Bookmark
Share
View Full Paper

Cite This Study

Parikh et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69994c14873532290d020458https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2026.11193
Ask AI
Helpful
Bookmark
Share
View Full Paper