Matched Asymptotic Expansions-Based Transferable Neural Networks for Singular Perturbation Problems

In this paper, by utilizing the theory of matched asymptotic expansions, an efficient and accurate neural network method, named as "MAE-TransNet", is developed for solving singular perturbation problems in general dimensions, whose solutions usually change drastically in some narrow boundary layers. The TransNet is a two-layer neural network with specially pre-trained hidden-layer neurons. In the proposed MAE-TransNet, the inner and outer solutions produced from the matched asymptotic expansions are first approximated by a TransNet with nonuniform hidden-layer neurons and a TransNet with uniform hidden-layer neurons, respectively. Then, these two solutions are combined with a matching term to obtain the composite solution, which approximates the asymptotic expansion solution of the singular perturbation problem. This process enables the MAE-TransNet method to retain the precision of the matched asymptotic expansions while maintaining the efficiency and accuracy of TransNet. Meanwhile, the rescaling of the sharp region allows the same pre-trained network parameters to be applied to boundary layers with various thicknesses, thereby improving the transferability of the method. Notably, for coupled boundary layer problems, a computational framework based on MAE-TransNet is also constructed to effectively address issues resulting from the lack of relevant matched asymptotic expansion theory in such problems. Our MAE-TransNet is compared with TransNet, PINN, and Boundary-Layer PINN on various benchmark problems including 1D linear and nonlinear problems with boundary layers, the 2D Couette flow problem, a 2D coupled boundary layer problem, and the 3D Burgers vortex problem. Numerical results demonstrate that MAE-TransNet significantly outperforms other neural network methods in capturing the characteristics of boundary layers, improving the accuracy, and reducing the computational cost.