Reducing drag by controlling wall turbulence

Abstract

Wall turbulence is a critically important phenomenon for any system where fluid flows past an object. Wall turbulence is responsible for 90 per cent of the drag experienced by a large crude tanker, to give just one example. This project aims to investigate novel ways to control wall turbulence by exploiting the presence of recently-discovered large-scale structures. This will lead to significant reductions in the drag and fuel burnt by transport vehicles.

Related publications (1)

Coherent large-scale structures from the linearized Navier-Stokes equations

Anagha Madhusudanan, Simon J Illingworth, Ivan Marusic

2019-08-25

The wall-normal extent of the large-scale structures modelled by the linearized Navier–Stokes equations subject to stochastic forc..