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Investigation of reinforcement learning for shape optimization of 2D profile extrusion die geometries

  • *Corresponding author: Daniel Wolff

    *Corresponding author: Daniel Wolff 
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  • Profile extrusion is a continuous production process for manufacturing plastic profiles from molten polymer. Especially interesting is the design of the die, through which the melt is pressed to attain the desired shape. However, due to an inhomogeneous velocity distribution at the die exit or residual stresses inside the extrudate, the final shape of the manufactured part often deviates from the desired one. To avoid these deviations, the shape of the die can be computationally optimized, which has already been investigated in the literature using classical optimization approaches [7,32,47].

    A new approach in the field of shape optimization is the utilization of RL as a learning-based optimization algorithm. RL is based on trial-and-error interactions of an agent with an environment. For each action, the agent is rewarded and informed about the subsequent state of the environment. While not necessarily superior to classical, e.g., gradient-based or evolutionary, optimization algorithms for one single problem, RL techniques are expected to perform especially well when similar optimization tasks are repeated since the agent learns a more general strategy for generating optimal shapes instead of concentrating on just one single problem.

    In this work, we investigate this approach by applying it to two 2D test cases. The flow-channel geometry can be modified by the RL agent using so-called FFD [34], a method where the computational mesh is embedded into a transformation spline, which is then manipulated based on the control-point positions. In particular, we investigate the impact of utilizing different agents on the training progress and the potential of wall time saving by utilizing multiple environments during training.

    Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 49Q10, 76D55; Secondary: 35Q30.

    Citation:

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  • Figure 1.  Interaction loop between an agent and an environment during training. In each interaction / training step $ t $, the agent selects an action $ a_t $ according to a policy $ \pi $ based on observations of the current environment's state $ s_t $ and a numerical reward signal $ r_t $. This changes the state of the environment and generates the new observation and the new reward for the next step

    Figure 2.  Limited taxonomy of RL agents. Blue items represent categories of agents. Turquoise items are agents trained with the off-policy method. Magenta items are agents trained with the onpolicy method

    Figure 3.  Visualization of the RL interaction between an agent and the environment in our $ \texttt{releso} $ framework. The environment has been customized to our shape optimization problem. It comprises the base mesh and the deformation spline used for the geometry parameterization, a FFD module deforming the mesh, the solver computing the governing PDE problem, and a component for postprocessing the simulation results to determine the reward and an observation of the CFD environment for the agent. The arrows correspond to the information flows between the different components: Green arrows represent meshes, yellow arrows spline parameterizations, and red arrow stands for the simulation results. Based on the provided reward and observation, the agent chooses an action to modify the deformation spline of the FFD

    Figure 4.  Visualization of the key idea of FFD: An initial geometry (A) is transformed by modifying the control points (dark-blue dots) of a transformation spline (highlighted in light-blue) to obtain a deformed geometry (B)

    Figure 5.  Geometry and boundaries of the T-shaped geometry

    Figure 6.  (A) shows the deformation spline used for the parameterization of the T-shaped geometry. To make the FFD more generic, the actual geometry is scaled to the parametric space of the transformation spline before applying geometric modifications. Additionally, the possible movement of the control points is illustrated by the orange arrows in (B)

    Figure 7.  Comparison of different algorithms trained to optimize the T-shaped geometry following a direct strategy with respect to the episode reward over the trained steps. Each run was repeated twice as indicated using the same color

    Figure 8.  Comparison of different algorithms trained to optimize the T-shaped geometry following an incremental strategy with respect to the episode reward over the trained steps. Each run was repeated twice as indicated using the same color

    Figure 9.  Examples of optimal geometries obtained by a PPO agent following an incremental optimization strategy on the T-shaped geometry. One can see that the trained agent has learned a valid strategy which involves modifying the control points that strongly influence the cross-sectional area of the two outflows

    Figure 10.  Episode reward over training steps of a PPO agent following an incremental strategy for optimizing the T-shaped geometry when interacting with different numbers of environments

    Figure 11.  Episode reward over wall time of a PPO agent following an incremental strategy for optimizing the T-shaped geometry when interacting with different numbers of environments

    Figure 12.  Geometry and boundaries of the converging channel geometry

    Figure 13.  Deformation spline used for the parameterization of the channel geometry. Additionally, the possible movement of the control points is illustrated by the orange arrows

    Figure 14.  Outflow boundary of the converging channel geometry. The outflow is divided into three patches $ \Gamma_{\text{out}, i} $, for which the flow-homogeneity criterion is evaluated

    Figure 15.  Comparison of different agents trained to optimize the converging channel geometry following a direct strategy with respect to the episode reward over the trained steps. Each run was repeated twice as indicated using the same color

    Figure 16.  Comparison of different agents trained to optimize the converging channel geometry following an incremental strategy with respect to the episode reward over the trained steps. Each run was repeated twice as indicated using the same color

    Figure 17.  Examples of optimal geometries obtained by a PPO agent following an incremental optimization strategy for the converging channel geometry. Each of the shown geometries has been generated from a random initial geometry generated by a random perturbation of the control points. Qualitatively the agent has learned to contract the channel as smoothly as possible to assert an optimal flow homogeneity

    Figure 18.  Comparison of different agents trained to optimize the converging channel geometry following a direct strategy with respect to the steps per episode over the trained steps. Each run was repeated twice as indicated using the same color

    Figure 19.  Comparison of different agents trained to optimize the converging channel geometry following an incremental strategy with respect to the steps per episode over the trained steps. Each run was repeated twice as indicated using the same color

    Figure 20.  Episode reward over training steps of a PPO agent following an incremental strategy for optimizing the converging channel geometry when interacting with different numbers of environments

    Figure 21.  Episode reward over wall time of a PPO agent following an incremental strategy for optimizing the converging channel geometry when interacting with different numbers of environments

    Table 1.  Compatibility of the agents implemented in $ \texttt{stable-baselines3} $ with regard to the direct and incremental shape optimization method

    Agent Incremental Direct
    PPO $\checkmark$ $\checkmark$
    DQN $\checkmark$ -
    SAC - $\checkmark$
    A2C $\checkmark$ $\checkmark$
    DDPG - $\checkmark$
     | Show Table
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    Table 2.  Material properties of the shear-thinning material law for all test cases

    Property Symbol Value Unit
    zero-shear viscosity $ A $ 10935 kg m−1 s−1
    reciprocal transition rate $ B $ 0.433 s−1
    slope of viscosity curve in pseudoplastic region $ C $ 0.699 -
     | Show Table
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    Table 3.  Wall-clock times of the agents trained with the direct optimization method to optimize the T-shaped geometry

    Agent Max. training time
    PPO 26.1 h
    A2C 46.5 h
    SAC 26.0 h
    DDPG 33.5 h
     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    Table 4.  Wall-clock times of the agents trained with the incremental optimization method for the T-shaped geometry use case.

    Agent Max. training time
    PPO 49.9 h
    A2C 45.1 h
    DQN 45.0 h
     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    Table 5.  Wall-clock times of the agents trained with the direct optimization method for the converging channel use case

    Agent Training time
    PPO 64.2 h
    A2C 44.0 h
    SAC 70.0 h
    DDPG 45.0 h
     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    Table 6.  Wall-clock times of the agents trained with the incremental optimization method for the converging channel use case

    Agent Training time
    PPO 42.2 h
    A2C 43.1 h
    DQN 44.7 h
     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV
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