Shark Skin-Inspired Designs Improve Aerodynamic PerformanceTo build more aerodynamic machines, resea
Shark Skin-Inspired Designs Improve Aerodynamic Performance
To build more aerodynamic machines, researchers are drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: the ocean.
A team of evolutionary biologists and engineers at Harvard University, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of South Carolina, has shed light on a decades-old mystery about sharkskin and, in the process, demonstrated a new, bioinspired structure that could improve the aerodynamic performance of planes, wind turbines, drones, and cars.
The research is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Sharks and airplanes aren’t actually all that different. Both are designed to efficiently move through fluid (water and air), using the shapes of their bodies to generate lift and decrease drag. The difference is, sharks have about a 400-million-year head start on the design process.
“The skin of sharks is covered by thousands and thousands of small scales, or denticles, which vary in shape and size around the body,” said George Lauder, the Henry Bryant Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology and professor of biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, a co-author of the research. “We know a lot about the structure of these denticles — which are very similar to human teeth — but the function has been debated.”
