Fluidic control for turbulent drag reduction

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In principle, it is possible to cover an aircraft wing or ship hull with sensors and actuators and pass the signal from the sensors to a computer, which will control the actuators in such a way that overall fuel consumption is reduced. The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) established a target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2020. This implies a considerable reduction in turbulent friction drag within a very short time scale - flight tests should be conducted not later than 2012. The IUTAM Symposium on flow control and MEMS (Imperial College, 19 - 22.09.2006) showed that while there is steady progress in the area, if the current pace of research is maintained, in-flight testing of turbulent drag reduction by active control will be hard to achieve by 2012. Therefore, at the expense of a higher risk, state-of-the-art knowledge in turbulence drag reduction by active control has to be used as is without waiting for further progress, so as to develop programs which can lead to flight tests in 2012. This proposal presents such a program. We propose to develop an advanced fluidic material such that the variations of the wall shear stress will induce the wall suction and blowing such that it will lead to drag reduction.