In this paper we propose and analyze a stochastic collocation method to solve elliptic partial differential equations with random coefficients and forcing terms (input data of the model). The input data are assumed to depend on a finite number of random variables. The method consists in a Galerkin approximation in space and a collocation in the zeros of suitable tensor product orthogonal polynomials (Gauss points) in the probability space and naturally leads to the solution of uncoupled deterministic problems as in the Monte Carlo approach. It can be seen as a generalization of the stochastic Galerkin method proposed in [I. Babuscka, R. Tempone, and G. E. Zouraris, SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 42 (2004), pp. 800-825] and allows one to treat easily a wider range of situations, such as input data that depend nonlinearly on the random variables, diffusivity coefficients with unbounded second moments, and random variables that are correlated or even unbounded. We provide a rigorous convergence analysis and demonstrate exponential convergence of the “probability error” with respect to the number of Gauss points in each direction in the probability space, under some regularity assumptions on the random input data. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the method.

/pdf/a-stochastic-collocation-method-for-elliptic-partial-343yn60obr.pdf

A Stochastic Collocation Method for Elliptic Partial Differential Equations with Random Input Data

An adaptive hierarchical sparse grid collocation algorithm for the solution of stochastic differential equations

A non-adapted sparse approximation of PDEs with stochastic inputs

This work proposes and analyzes a stochastic collocation method for solving elliptic partial differential equations with random coefficients and forcing terms. These input data are assumed to depend on a finite number of random variables. The method consists of a Galerkin approximation in space and a collocation in the zeros of suitable tensor product orthogonal polynomials (Gauss points) in the probability space, and naturally leads to the solution of uncoupled deterministic problems as in the Monte Carlo approach. It treats easily a wide range of situations, such as input data that depend nonlinearly on the random variables, diffusivity coefficients with unbounded second moments, and random variables that are correlated or even unbounded. We provide a rigorous convergence analysis and demonstrate exponential convergence of the “probability error” with respect to the number of Gauss points in each direction of the probability space, under some regularity assumptions on the random input data. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the method. Finally, we include a section with developments posterior to the original publication of this work. There we review sparse grid stochastic collocation methods, which are effective collocation strategies for problems that depend on a moderately large number of random variables.

/pdf/a-stochastic-collocation-method-for-elliptic-partial-47j1g8z02v.pdf

A review of predictive nonlinear theories for multiscale modeling of heterogeneous materials

https://www.dam.brown.edu/AFOSR_MURI_pub/Ma_Zabaras_JCP.pdf

An adaptive high-dimensional stochastic model representation technique for the solution of stochastic partial differential equations

A new approach to modeling inverse problems using a Bayesian inference method is introduced. The Bayesian approach considers the unknown parameters as random variables and seeks the probabilistic distribution of the unknowns. By introducing the concept of the stochastic prior state space to the Bayesian formulation, we reformulate the deterministic forward problem as a stochastic one. The adaptive hierarchical sparse grid collocation (ASGC) method is used for constructing an interpolant to the solution of the forward model in this prior space which is large enough to capture all the variability/uncertainty in the posterior distribution of the unknown parameters. This solution can be considered as a function of the random unknowns and serves as a stochastic surrogate model for the likelihood calculation. Hierarchical Bayesian formulation is used to derive the posterior probability density function (PPDF). The spatial model is represented as a convolution of a smooth kernel and a Markov random field. The state space of the PPDF is explored using Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms to obtain statistics of the unknowns. The likelihood calculation is performed by directly sampling the approximate stochastic solution obtained through the ASGC method. The technique is assessed on two nonlinear inverse problems: source inversion and permeability estimation in flow through porous media.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0266-5611/25/3/035013/pdf

An efficient Bayesian inference approach to inverse problems based on an adaptive sparse grid collocation method

https://www.dam.brown.edu/AFOSR_MURI_pub/Ma_Zabaras_KernelPrincipal.pdf

Kernel principal component analysis for stochastic input model generation

: Stochastic analysis of random heterogeneous media provides useful information only if realistic input models of the material property variations are used. These input models are often constructed from a set of experimental samples of the underlying random field. To this end, the Karhunen-Loeve (K-L) expansion, also known as principal component analysis (PCA), is the most popular model reduction method due to its uniform mean-square convergence. However, it only projects the samples onto an optimal linear subspace, which results in an unreasonable representation of the original data if they are non-linearly related to each other. In other words, it only preserves the second-order statistics (covariance) of a random field, which is insufficient for reproducing complex structures. This paper applies kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) to construct a reduced-order stochastic input model for the material property variation in heterogeneous media. KPCA can be considered as a nonlinear version of PCA. Through use of kernel functions, KPCA further enables the preservation of high-order statistics of the random field, instead of just two-point statistics as in the standard Karhunen-Lo`eve (K-L) expansion. Thus, this method can model non-Gaussian, non-stationary random fields. In addition, polynomial chaos (PC) expansion is used to represent the random coefficients in KPCA which provides a parametric stochastic input model. Thus, realizations, which are consistent statistically with the experimental data, can be generated in an efficient way. We showcase the methodology by constructing a low-dimensional stochastic input model to represent channelized permeability in porous media.

Xiang Ma

Papers

An adaptive hierarchical sparse grid collocation algorithm for the solution of stochastic differential equations

An adaptive high-dimensional stochastic model representation technique for the solution of stochastic partial differential equations

An efficient Bayesian inference approach to inverse problems based on an adaptive sparse grid collocation method

Kernel principal component analysis for stochastic input model generation

Kernel Principal Component Analysis for Stochastic Input Model Generation (PREPRINT)