IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v388y1997i6644d10.1038_41966.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Turbulent drag reduction by passive mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • L. Sirovich

    (Orlev Scientific/Ormat Industries
    Brown University)

  • S. Karlsson

    (Orlev Scientific/Ormat Industries
    Brown University)

Abstract

In many situations involving flows of high Reynolds number (where inertial forces dominate over viscous forces), such as aircraft flight and the pipeline transportation of fuels, turbulent drag is an important factor limiting performance. This has led to an extensive search for both active and passive methods for drag reduction1. Here we report the results of a series of wind-tunnel experiments that demonstrate a passive means of effectively controlling turbulence in channel flow. Our approach involves the introduction of specified patterns of protrusions on the confining walls, which interact with the coherent, energy-bearing eddy structures in the wall region, and so influence the rate at which energy is dissipated in the turbulent flow. We show that relatively small changes in the arrangement of these protrusions can alter the response of the system from one of drag decrease to increased mixing (drag enhancement).

Suggested Citation

  • L. Sirovich & S. Karlsson, 1997. "Turbulent drag reduction by passive mechanisms," Nature, Nature, vol. 388(6644), pages 753-755, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6644:d:10.1038_41966
    DOI: 10.1038/41966
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/41966
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/41966?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Özkan, Musa & Erkan, Onur, 2022. "Control of a boundary layer over a wind turbine blade using distributed passive roughness," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 421-429.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6644:d:10.1038_41966. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.