Project Researching Bristled Shark Skin

The Lindbergh Foundation announced this week Dr. Amy Lang of the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa was recently awarded a 2007 Lindbergh Grant for her project entitled, “Reducing the Drag over Aircraft by Mimicking the Surface Geometry of Bristled Shark Skin Scales.”

The issue of reducing drag over solid surfaces in high velocity flows is one that has kept researchers working for years. It is estimated that even a 1% reduction in drag can save an airline company $100,000 to $200,000 and at least 25,000 gallons of fuel per year per aircraft.

Worldwide, this 1% reduction could translate to fuel savings of more than $1 billion per year. The resulting reduction in emissions looks to be equally as impressive.

With her Lindbergh Grant, Dr. Lang will determine whether the surface texture on the skin of fast-swimming sharks, potentially capable of bristling their scales when in pursuit of prey, could be mimicked and used to reduce the drag on aircraft. She will perform water tunnel experiments to measure the flow over and within a bristled sharkskin model (2 cm size scales), which achieves similarity with real sharkskin (0.2 mm size scales) by a corresponding scale down in velocity of the experiments. She will also obtain drag measurements over a sharkskin model in a Couette flow facility containing high viscosity oil.

According to the Foundation, Lang's objective is to reveal the boundary layer control mechanisms of the bristled sharkskin to deduce the means by which sharks minimize their drag. The project has the potential to reduce aircraft drag by 30%, once the technology is refined and implemented, greatly reducing the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels, reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, and costs.

Lang received one of 14 Lindbergh grants awarded so far this year, the most grants issued by the Foundation since 1985. She was chosen from 150 applicants from around the world.

Lindbergh Grants are made in amounts up to $10,580, a symbolic amount representing the cost of building Charles Lindbergh’s plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in 1927. To date, more than $2.7 million has been awarded to 284 researchers. Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc., sponsored this aviation grant.

FMI: www.lindberghfoundation.org