Biomimetic Drag Reduction Study on Herringbone Riblets of Bird Feather

• Published in: Journal of bionics engineering 2013-07, Vol.10 (3), p.341-349
• Main Authors: Chen, Huawei, Rao, Fugang, Shang, Xiaopeng, Zhang, Deyuan, Hagiwara, Ichiro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Aves; Biochemical Engineering; Bioinformatics; Biomaterials; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology; biomimetic surface; bird feather; Computational fluid dynamics; Drag reduction; Engineering; Feathers; Flying; herringbone riblets; Microstructure; Pigeons; Quantitative analysis; Riblets; 人字形; 仿生人; 减阻率; 微观结构; 羽毛; 自然选择; 飞行性能; 鸟类
• ISSN: 1672-6529; 2543-2141
• DOI: 10.1016/S1672-6529(13)60229-2

Birds have gradually formed various excellent structures such as streamlined shape and hollow shaft of feather to improve their flying performance by millions of years of natural selection. As typical property of bird feather, herringbone riblets align along the shaft of each feather, which is caused by perfect link of barbs, especially for the primary and secondary feathers of wings. Such herringbone riblets of feather are assumed to have great impact on drag reduction. In this paper, microstructures of secondary feathers of adult pigeons are investigated by SEM, and their structural parameters are statistically obtained. Based on quantitative analysis of feather structure, novel biomimetic herringbone riblets with narrow smooth edge are proposed to reduce surface drag. In comparison with traditional microgroove riblets and other drag reduction structures, the drag reduction rate of the proposed biomimetic herringbone riblets is experimentally clarified up to 16%, much higher than others. Moreover, the drag reduction mechanism of herringbone riblets are also confirmed and exploited by CFD.