It is quiet fascinating to design an aerodynamic, high
energy efficient and more fuel efficient aircrafts which holds the key for
saving energy and it has been time to involve the oceans oldest predator
‘shark’ in the design of these aircrafts.
Germany’s biggest
airlines Lufthansa took an initiative for trails of shark skin paints on their
airbuses. Some rough estimations for engineers said that if an aircraft was
covered by 40-70% of shark skin paint, it could reduce the fuel consumption by
1%.
The sharks skin
is covered in tiny riblets that reduce turbulent vortices and drag they cause
and thereby reducing the surface resistance when moving at high speeds. This
phenomenon of stream line shark skin had been known for about 30 years and it
is found in various applications in diverse fields like aeronautics, military
aircraft designs and development of high swimsuits.
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