In this section, the proposed method will be applied to two examples. First, one theoretical example with a polynomial function in a 5 dimensional space that is not well estimated using a simple DOE and s-PGD. Secondly, one industrial crash simulation application.
The results obtained on these two applications have been compared to the ones computed with more usual, or previously used, sampling methods.
3.1. Polynomial function
As a first example, we are trying to estimate the following polynomial function from [
28] in a 5 dimensional input space.
In
Figure 2, a plot of the ground truth function is shown for
as in [
28] for comparison purpose.
The function is considered on the input space
, and the predictions are made over this space using an s-PGD model trained with the Fisher Matrix Active Learning method. The results are compared with an s-PGD trained on an LHS with the same number of samples as training database and with the results of the previous article [
28], which are obtained through a 4-th order MAS s-PGD, and an LHS of 160 points as training set.
Moreover, for the Matrix Method the next sample is chosen within a pool of available samples like in a pool-based strategy. This pool is defined as a k-dimensional grid (5 here) of N subdivisions, which gives a group of possible elements evenly distributed over the input parametric space. In our application, a refined research grid of size is used to have a wide choice of queries.
In
Figure 3, the output shape of the function is plotted at different steps for the same fixed parameters as before. The blue points are the initial training points for the model at this step. The red ones are the new added points for different number of queries. On the left side the samples are computed with the Matrix Method. On the right side, new samples are computed using LHS.
With the Matrix Method, the training points are added accordingly to the shape of the predicted output function and in order to reduce the output variance. This leads to more points on the curved areas and borders, while the LHS gives a more random and evenly distributed screening on the input space independent of the output shape. As shown in
Figure 3, the prediction is adapted step by step in the Matrix Method until no more significant change. This precision can be settled accurately by adapting the value of the stopping criterion.
To compare more directly the performances of both methods, the correlation coefficients, defined as follows in Equation (
26) and calculated on the test set, are evaluated.
Where corresponds to the prediction made by the model, to the real output values and , to the corresponding means.
The results, from 25 to 55 queries, for both LHS and Matrix Method at each step are plotted in
Figure 4. These plots have been repeated for 400 iterations of the whole Active Learning process with different initialization databases (constructed with different LHS of 25 values). The average, first and last quartile of
have been extracted for each method.
It appears that the Matrix Method converges faster than the LHS, reaching a stable level with a training database of 40 samples, while the LHS performances are still increasing and lower. Adding samples increasingly gives an average correlation value of 0.824 while it only reaches 0.647 with an LHS for 35 samples. Compared to the results of the previous study in [
28], where a training of an LHS with 160 samples has been chosen to reach an
of 0.88, here the same value can be obtained with only 35 samples.
Besides, it is also noteworthy that the initial training database has a lot of impact on the results. Specially at the beginning of the Active Learning process. Indeed, the interquartile range is, at first, around 0.23 for the Matrix Method and 0.21 for the LHS, meaning the dispersion is notable. After that, it decreases quickly for the Matrix Method, reaching 0.07 against 0.5 for the LHS around 10 queries. This phenomenon is explained because the LHS seeks to increase the inertia by starting in random directions. This is optimal for a group of tests, but the estimator does not take into account the past training data. On the contrary, our approach, is sought to optimize the points and the past sets of points with a criterion of minimization of the variance.
Moreover, the grid size can be more or less refined and needs a compromise. Indeed, this is illustrated in
Figure 5 where the final value of
after 30 queries is plotted. That is to say after the criterion has converged and no more variation between the queries at the state
n and
. This shows that with a wider grid size the
values obtained by the Matrix Method can be higher and thus the performances obtained by the model are better. For example, for 35 queries a
value of 0.790 is obtained for a
grid against 0.824 for a
grid.
This can be easily explained because with a more refined grid more “next points” are available, and the algorithm can choose more precisely where to add a new point. However, it is also more time consuming to compute the criterion for the whole grid, and it is more memory consuming to save and calculate the corresponding values. Thus a compromise is necessary. Moreover, it appears in
Figure 5 that after 10 subdivisions the slope of increase is lower. For this problem a subdivision after 10 should be chosen, still taking into account the calculation time.
Globally, the results obtained with the Matrix Method appear to be significantly better than with usual samplings. Although at first it is more time-consuming, or computationally more expensive, to determine the next point to add at each step, time and costs are saved in the end because fewer amount of samples are required by the model to converge. This aspect is particularly interesting for industrial applications where simulation or experimental costs need to be minimized.
3.2. Application on a box-beam crash absorber
Now, this method was applied to an industrial mechanical problem through a box-beam deformation example. The idea, here, is to study and predict the deformation of a beam separated in tree parts. Each part (part 1, part 2 and part 3) has a specific thickness. The whole beam is subjected to a loading along its main axis
on one side and clamped on the other. The model is represented in
Figure 6.
The application of the stress smashes the beam along the
y axis. The corresponding deformation depends on the thickness chosen for the tree boxes. Some cases are represented in
Figure 7. First, intermediate and last time step for different inputs values of thicknesses for the 3 parts are illustrated.
In this case, the model’s aim is to estimate the displacement along the main axis of a point located at the edge of the beam at the final simulation time step function of the thicknesses chosen for each box as input parameters . As before, we will compare the performances (in terms of values) for s-PGD models trained with our active method and with an LHS with the same number of samples. As only 3 parameters are involved here, the initialization for the Matrix Method is done with a small LHS of 10 samples.
Moreover, the whole process is repeated 100 times to make an average of the results obtained, which is plot in
Figure 8.
The grid is refined with a size to be precise enough.
It appears in
Figure 8 that as for the previous example, the Matrix Method reaches higher values of
faster than the use of an usual DOE. Indeed, it gives in average a value
higher than with the LHS. However, the increase of the two methods is here more similar than before. The difference is also less important. This can be explained because there are only three parameters involved and the behaviour of the output is quite simple. There is also still a variability associated to the initialization state, with a
of average variation for the Matrix Method and
for standard LHS.