Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications

Vehicles travelling underwater experience drag and the frictional drag costs 60% of the total energy consumption. Using trapped air serving as a lubricant is a promising way to reduce drag. The trapped air plays a significant role in drag reduction, and most failures in drag reduction are related to...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: You Nie, Ding Weng, Jiadao Wang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-12-01
Series:Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/12/12/2224
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1846104128124616704
author You Nie
Ding Weng
Jiadao Wang
author_facet You Nie
Ding Weng
Jiadao Wang
author_sort You Nie
collection DOAJ
description Vehicles travelling underwater experience drag and the frictional drag costs 60% of the total energy consumption. Using trapped air serving as a lubricant is a promising way to reduce drag. The trapped air plays a significant role in drag reduction, and most failures in drag reduction are related to instability, escape, and dissolution of the trapped air. In this work, discrete grooves are employed to trap air and reduce drag. Through the analysis of the trapped air stability, the groove length and width are believed to be the main factors that influence the air escape and instability, and thus they are limited in this work to avoid these problems. The air dissolution is inevitable. The effective way to mitigate the air dissolution is to deepen the groove depth. The groove depth in this work varies from 0.5 mm to 4 mm. The numerical simulation is employed to analyze the flow field, reveal the drag reduction mechanism, and optimize the groove length. The experimental measurements are conducted to verify our design. The result confirms our design that the discrete grooves successfully avoid air escape and instability, mitigate air dissolution, and reduce drag. This work is meaningful for underwater vehicles to travel with low energy consumption and high speed.
format Article
id doaj-art-2f89cccef5704415a97ce885e0bf04bd
institution Kabale University
issn 2077-1312
language English
publishDate 2024-12-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
spelling doaj-art-2f89cccef5704415a97ce885e0bf04bd2024-12-27T14:33:18ZengMDPI AGJournal of Marine Science and Engineering2077-13122024-12-011212222410.3390/jmse12122224Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater ApplicationsYou Nie0Ding Weng1Jiadao Wang2State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, ChinaState Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, ChinaState Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, ChinaVehicles travelling underwater experience drag and the frictional drag costs 60% of the total energy consumption. Using trapped air serving as a lubricant is a promising way to reduce drag. The trapped air plays a significant role in drag reduction, and most failures in drag reduction are related to instability, escape, and dissolution of the trapped air. In this work, discrete grooves are employed to trap air and reduce drag. Through the analysis of the trapped air stability, the groove length and width are believed to be the main factors that influence the air escape and instability, and thus they are limited in this work to avoid these problems. The air dissolution is inevitable. The effective way to mitigate the air dissolution is to deepen the groove depth. The groove depth in this work varies from 0.5 mm to 4 mm. The numerical simulation is employed to analyze the flow field, reveal the drag reduction mechanism, and optimize the groove length. The experimental measurements are conducted to verify our design. The result confirms our design that the discrete grooves successfully avoid air escape and instability, mitigate air dissolution, and reduce drag. This work is meaningful for underwater vehicles to travel with low energy consumption and high speed.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/12/12/2224drag reductiongroovestrapped air
spellingShingle You Nie
Ding Weng
Jiadao Wang
Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
drag reduction
grooves
trapped air
title Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications
title_full Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications
title_fullStr Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications
title_full_unstemmed Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications
title_short Drag Reduction Through Air-Trapping Discrete Grooves in Underwater Applications
title_sort drag reduction through air trapping discrete grooves in underwater applications
topic drag reduction
grooves
trapped air
url https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/12/12/2224
work_keys_str_mv AT younie dragreductionthroughairtrappingdiscretegroovesinunderwaterapplications
AT dingweng dragreductionthroughairtrappingdiscretegroovesinunderwaterapplications
AT jiadaowang dragreductionthroughairtrappingdiscretegroovesinunderwaterapplications