SharkWings: Discovery of Shark-Scale Inspired Denticles that Improve Aircraft Airfoil Aerodynamics

Overview

Drag reduction is crucial for the aviation industry: a 1.1% reduction can save billions of dollars annually and benefit the environment, yet passive flow-control for aircrafts at cruising-conditions remains untapped. Simple-denticles, inspired by shark-scales, have never been trialed on curved-surfaces, but have been on flat-surfaces. This experiment if tested simple-denticles on the top-surface of airfoils reduce drag and increase lift by energizing the boundary-layer and creating a recirculation-bubble. They were simulated in OpenFOAM and showed goldilocks relationships for pressure-drag with denticle-geometries including height, length, spanwise-gap, width, and additional rows. An optimized-denticle reduced an airfoil's drag by ~2%. However, sub-optimal geometries create a turbulent-wake, weaken the recirculation-bubble, or lead to frictional-exhaustion, increasing drag. Novel simple-denticles tested show potential for implementation in a matter of years across fields that deal with curved-body aerodynamics. In this specific application, they usurp vortex-generators that have existed for decades by improving both lift and drag.

Awards (1)

• Selected for CWSF 2026

Competition history

• CWSF 2026 Aerospace

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