Physical Asymptotic-Solution nets: Physics-driven neural networks solve seepage equations as traditional numerical solution behaves

Deep learning for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) has been a major research hotspot. Various neural network frameworks have been proposed to solve nonlinear PDEs. However, most deep learning-based methods need labeled data, while traditional numerical solutions do not need any labeled data. Aiming at deep learning-based methods behaving as traditional numerical solutions do, this paper proposed an approximation-correction model to solve unsteady compressible seepage equations with sinks without using any labeled data. The model contains two neural networks, one for approximating the asymptotic solution, which is mathematically correct when time tends to 0 and infinity, and the other for correcting the error of the approximation, where the final solution is physically correct by constructing the loss function based on the boundary conditions, PDE, and mass conservation. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method can solve seepage equations with high accuracy without using any labeled data, as conventional numerical solutions do. This is a significant breakthrough for deep learning-based methods to solve PDE.