INTRODUCTION The drag (D) of seven (7) male swimmers wearing five (5) swimsuits was investigated. METHODS The drag was measured during passive surface tows at speeds from 0.2 up to 2.2 m x s and during starts and push-offs. The swimsuits varied in body coverage from shoulder-to-ankle (SA), shoulder-to-knee (SK), waist-to-ankle (WA) and waist-to-knee (WK) and briefs (CS). RESULTS Differences...

We examine drag-reduction proposals, as presented in this volume and in general, first with concrete examples of how to bridge the distance from pure science through engineering to what makes inventions go into service; namely, the value to the public. We point out that the true drag reduction can be markedly different from an estimate based simply on the difference between turbulent and lamina...

To calculate the energy costs of swimming or flying, it is crucial to evaluate the drag force originating from skin friction. This topic seems not to have received a definite answer, given the difficulty in measuring accurately the friction drag along objects in movement. The incoming flow along a flat plate in a flapping normal motion has been considered, as limit case of a yawed cylinder in u...

A reactive control technique with localised actuators and sensors is used to delay the transition to turbulence in a flat-plate boundary-layer flow. Through extensive direct numerical simulations, it is shown that an adaptive technique, which computes the control law on-line, is able to significantly reduce skin-friction drag in the presence of random three-dimensional perturbation fields with ...

Computational experiments based on the direct numerical simulation of turbulent channel flow reveal that the skin friction can be reduced as much as 70% by the action of a localized steady force acting against the flow close to the wall. In addition, the excessive shear stresses observed during the laminar-to-turbulence transition can be substantially reduced. For a sustained reduction in the s...

Dimples are small concavities imprinted on a flat surface, known to affect heat transfer and also flow separation aerodynamic drag bluff bodies when acting as standard roughness. Recently, dimples have been proposed roughness pattern that is capable of reducing the turbulent plate by providing reduction skin friction compensates dimple-induced pressure leads global benefit. The question whether...