Effects of Biomimetic Riblet Configurations on the Drag Reduction

Abstract

The friction reduction in a turbulent flow is one of the main design factors for a variety of fluid machinery. Humans have made an effort to apply the biomimetic designs of the nature to the fluid machinery. This study found the possibility of reducing the friction by using the biomimetic shark skin riblets and determined the geometrical configurations and arrangements of the riblets. Numerical analysis was performed to investigate the effect of the biomimetic riblet configurations on the drag reduction using the commercial CFD code ANSYS. The steady-state condition and RSM turbulence model were adopted. Based on the results of surface friction coefficient, the optimal configuration of the riblets was suggested.