Hierarchical nested riblet surface for higher drag reduction in turbulent boundary layer

Abstract

Riblets can be potentially employed to passively reduce the turbulent friction drag. However, the drag reduction performance of riblets does not currently meet expectations, which could assist in emission reduction and energy conservation in green transportation. This study proposes and validates a topological form of hierarchical nested riblets (HNR) that significantly enhances the drag reduction performance. To explore the drag reduction enhancement mechanism, direct numerical simulations are performed for flow simulation on the riblet surface under different Reynolds numbers. The results show that under the riblet dimensionless spacing of the riblet s+≈21, the drag reduction performance of the HNR surface improves by about 70% compared to that of the uniform riblet surface, which is inspired by shark skin. From the perspective of turbulence statistics, the HNR surface reduces the turbulent mixing near the wall, weakening the momentum transfer. Furthermore, the transient flow field shows that the secondary riblet in HNR prevents some turbulent flow and streamwise vortices from entering the groove, considerably weakening the dispersive stress induced by the secondary flow. Moreover, owing to the influence of the secondary riblet, small-scale turbulence develops and strengthens into large-scale turbulent motion, which is advantageous to the boundary layer flow and results in drag reduction improvement.