A new type of nonsmooth surface inspired by the shape of barchan dunes has been proposed and is intended to reduce skin friction, a major cause of overall drag. Simulations were carried out to obtain skin friction reduction characteristics for the nonsmooth surface using the commercial computational fluid dynamics software Fluent. A realizable k-ε model was employed to assess the influence of the nonsmooth structure on turbulent flow and velocity fields. The numerical simulation results showed that the new nonsmooth surface possesses the desired skin friction reduction effect and that the maximum skin friction reduction percentage reached 33.63% at a fluid speed of 30 m/s. Various aspects of the skin friction reduction mechanism were discussed, including the distribution of velocity vectors and shear stress contours and the variations in boundary layer thickness. The accuracy of the flow field for the nonsmooth unit was further verified by particle image velocimetry test results. The new bionic nonsmooth surface, which exceeds the limitations of existing nonsmooth bionic structures, can effectively reduce skin friction and should provide insights into engineering applications in the future.

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