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Biomimetic Drag Reduction Study on Herringbone Riblets of Bird Feather

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Abstract

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P. R. China

    Huawei Chen, Fugang Rao, Xiaopeng Shang & Deyuan Zhang

  2. Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, 152-8550, Japan

    Ichiro Hagiwara

Authors
  1. Huawei Chen
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  2. Fugang Rao
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  3. Xiaopeng Shang
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  4. Deyuan Zhang
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  5. Ichiro Hagiwara
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Correspondence to Huawei Chen.

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Chen, H., Rao, F., Shang, X. et al. Biomimetic Drag Reduction Study on Herringbone Riblets of Bird Feather. J Bionic Eng 10, 341–349 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1672-6529(13)60229-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1672-6529(13)60229-2

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