Computational and experimental studies of an active skin for turbulent drag reduction

Capitalizing on recent developments in Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) studies on turbulent drag reduction techniques, an active or a "smart" skin has been developed to achieve turbulent drag reduction in realistic flight conditions. The active skin is deformed to take the shape a traveling wave profile through active material actuation. Its operating principle is based on computational evidence that indicates that a transverse traveling wave of certain amplitude, wavelength and frequency can result in significant turbulent drag reduction. The dynamic response of the active skin to actuation at high frequencies is studied using finite element analysis to evaluate the feasibility of the design. For preliminary testing and validation of the DNS results, a mechanically actuated prototype skin based on cam action has been manufactured using a rapid prototyping machine. Cam action was found to introduce circular oscillations on the surface of the skin and modifications have been made to the design to eliminate these oscillations. 2002 by O. Rediniotis, D. Lagoudas, R. Mani, L. Traub and R. Allen.

Computational and experimental studies of an active skin for turbulent drag reduction Conference Paper