An Experimental Study of Drag Reduction in a Pipe with Superhydrophobic Coating at Moderate Reynolds Numbers

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigates drag reduction, durability for operations and effects for preventing microorganism from adhering to the surface when the superhydrophobic coating is applied on a solid surface. The experiments are divided into two parts. In the first part, a pipe flow system was established to measure the drag and to test the durability of the micro-structure of superhydrophobic coating at average speeds varying from 1m/sec to 6m/sec. In the second part, we tested the effect for preventing microorganism from adhering to the surface by putting the coated steel plates into sea water. There are four different superhydrophobic coatings in the present study. The experimental results were compared to those applied by ship paint usually used at CSBC.