3rd AIAA Flow Control Conference AIAA 2006-3192

5 - 8 June 2006, San Francisco, California

Turbulent Drag Reduction Using Superhydrophobic Surfaces

C. Henoch*
Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, RI 02841USA

T. N. Krupenkin, P. Kolodner, J. A. Taylor, M. S. Hodes**, A. M. Lyons

Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA

and

C. Peguero and K. Breuer

Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 USA

Superhydrophobic surfaces are known to exhibit reduced viscous drag due to "slip"
associated with a layer of air trapped at the liquid-solid interface. It is expected that this slip
will lead to reduced turbulent skin-friction drag in external flows at higher Reynolds
numbers in both the laminar and turbulent regimes. Results are presented from
experiments exploring this effect. Large-area Superhydrophobic test surfaces have been
fabricated and tested in a water tunnel, measuring drag in both the laminar and transitional
regimes at velocities up to 1.4 m/s. Drag reduction of approximately 50% is observed for
laminar flow. Lower levels of drag reduction are observed at higher speeds after the flow
has transitioned to turbulence.

I. Introduction

T he combination of hydrophobicity and micron-scale surface roughness leads to a phenomenon known as

superhydrophobicity. Water droplets placed on superhydrophobic surfaces bead up into a nearly spherical
shape, exhibiting contact angles that approach 180. 1 The flow of water over superhydrophobic surfaces exhibits
non-zero slip, and this has lead to the observation of enhanced droplet mobility2 and drag reduction in laminar flow
through microchannels.3

Experiments in water at higher Reynolds numbers4,5 have also suggested that the structure of the turbulent boundary
layer is changed by the presence of a superhydrophobic surface such that the turbulent skin friction is reduced. In
addition, numerical experiments6 have indicated that the structure of a turbulent wall-bounded flow in water can also
be significantly affected when the solid surface is superhydrophobic. The effect was found to be geometrically
anisotropic: micron-sized streamwise ridges were found to reduce skin-friction drag, while spanwise ridges

*
Mechanical Engineer, Hydrodynamics Branch, Building 1302 Code 8233, Newport, RI 02841, member of AIAA.

Member of Technical Staff, Materials for Communications Research Department, Room 1D-352, 600 Mountain
Ave., Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636.

Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Optical Technology Research Department, Room 1E-314, 600
Mountain Ave., Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636.

Member of Technical Staff, Nanofabriaction Research Laboratory, Room 2D-551, 600 Mountain Ave., Murray
Hill, NJ 07974-0636.
**
Member of Technical Staff, Optical Technology Research Department, Room 1C-462, 600 Mountain Ave.,
Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636.

Member of Technical Staff. Value Chain Research, Blanchardstown Industrial Park, Blanchardstown, Ireland.

Graduate research assistant, Division of Engineering, Box D, 182 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02912.

Professor, Division of Engineering, Box D, 182 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02912. Senior member of AIAA.
Corresponding author. Tel: 401.863.2870; Fax: 401.863.9028; Email: kbreuer@brown.edu.

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Copyright 2006 by Kenneth Breuer. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.
 increased it. An isotropic pattern of surface roughness was found to produce effects of intermediate magnitude.
Although these results suggest new and powerful techniques for controlling drag in turbulent flows, verifying these
predictions presents many challenges, including

Manufacturing of large areas of tailored surface roughness in a controlled manner,

Preparation of robust hydrophobic coatings that can survive extensive testing, and
Accurate characterization of turbulent flows and measurement of turbulent drag over test surfaces

In this paper, we describe fabrication techniques and experimental testing of superhydrophobic surfaces. The
preliminary results demonstrate large areas of uniformly fabricated hydrophobic surfaces, successful hydrophobic
coatings and significant reduction of viscous skin friction in the laminar and transitional regimes. Further
experiments, currently underway, will add results from PIV on the detailed structure of turbulent flow with and
without the hydrophobic surfaces.

II. Superhydrophobic surfaces

It has long been known that a high degree of surface roughness

often results in a substantial increase in the degree of
hydrophobicity of the solid substrate.1 More recently, this
phenomenon, coupled with modern self-assembly and
microfabrication techniques, has been used to demonstrate so-called
superhydrophobic surfaces, which exhibit a number of new and
exciting properties such as extremely high contact angles and very
low flow resistance.1,2 This kind of behavior makes
superhydrophobic surfaces important candidates for a wide range of
applications, from microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip devices to drag
reduction and self-cleaning coatings. One example of this surface
has been developed at Bell Laboratories and is termed nanograss,
due to its construction from a large array of grass-like silicon Figure 1. SEM image of silicon
structures.7 Fig. 1 shows an SEM image of a typical nanograss nanograss. The diameter of the
structure. Uniform arrays of nanograss can be fabricated over large posts is about 400 nm, the height is
areas of 200-mm-diameter Si wafers; the height, diameter, and about 7 m, and the spacing between
spacing of the structures are freely adjustable. When these surfaces the posts is 1.25 m.
are coated with a hydrophobic polymer, they exhibit
superhydrophobic characteristics, with contact angles approaching
180. Air trapped in between the posts acts to preserve the non-
wetting character and to generate a "slip surface" so that low-drag
characteristics are generated when the nanograss surface is
submerged in water.

Fig. 2 illustrates another superhydrophobic surface, in a geometry

called nanobricks. This structure consists of closed cells that trap
air, thus resisting hydrostatic pressure more effectively than the
open nanograss structure. As with nanograss, the geometrical
parameters of closed-cell structures like nanobricks are
determined photolithographically and can be chosen freely, within
wide limits.

III. Fabrication of large-area superhydrophobic surfaces Figure 2. SEM image of silicon

nanobricks. The size of each cell is 4
Fields of 22 mm x 22 mm of appropriate patterns were stitched m x 10 m, the height of the cell walls
together to continuously cover 200 mm Si wafers using 248 nm is about 1 m, and the thickness of the
photolithography. Deep reactive ion etching was used to form the walls is 300 nm

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nanostructures. After oxide growth, the wafers were
diced into individual 104.0 mm x 87.3 mm plates, which
were then coated with a thin CFx film formed by plasma
vapor deposition using C4F8 as a precursor.
To produce superhydrophobic surfaces covering a large
area, eight tiles were epoxied to an aluminum plate of
dimensions 415.9 mm x 174.6 mm. To ensure minimal
perturbation of the incident fluid flow field, the tiles
were carefully butted together so that the width of the
cracks between them was less than about 0.05 mm.
Steps in level height between adjacent tiles and between
the tiles and the surrounding metal border were also held Figure 3. Nanograss-covered test plate. The overall
to similar values. A photograph of one such test plate is size of the nanostrucutured area is 416 mm x 175 mm.
shown in Fig. 3. In this picture, the colors in the
photograph are due to diffraction of room light by the microstructures. One test plate was made using each of the
nanostructures shown in Figs. 1 and 2, and a third reference plate was assembled using flat silicon tiles. A flat plate
made from PVC was also used as a reference.

IV. Water tunnel testing

Experiments were conducted in the NUWC research water tunnel, which has a 0.3 m x 0.3 m test section of length
3.1 m. The test section contains a full-width fiberglass plate with a 4:1 elliptical leading edge, of total length 1.2 m.
This plate has a rectangular hole, 370 mm from the leading edge, in which the test plate is suspended by flexible
steel strips. Thus, the test plate is free to deflect under hydrodynamic forces. An optical proximity sensor measures
this deflection and is calibrated in situ so that the hydrodynamic drag can be determined from the test-plate
deflection. Two series of tests were performed a control experiment in which a PVC dummy plate was tested, and
an experiment in which the nanograss plate was tested. Auxiliary experiments were also performed using a flat
silicon surface and a surface of nanobricks; these are not reported here.

Fig. 4 shows the result of baseline measurements on the flat PVC plate. The open circles represent individual data
points, while the smooth black curve is a spline fit to the
data. Theoretical estimates for the drag in the laminar and
turbulent regimes are represented by colored curves and
are consistent with the data. The transition to turbulence is
evident at a freestream velocity of 1.0 1.1 m/sec. (Rex =
370,000 407,000 at the leading edge of the test surface).

In Fig. 5, the drag measured using the nanograss plate (red

symbols) is compared with the baseline data copied from
Fig. 4 (blue symbols). The principal observation is that the
drag force on the nanograss plate is substantially lower
than that measured using the PVC plate. This is maintained
over the entire range of speed tested. As with the baseline
flow (Fig 4), the drag rises slowly until a speed of
approximately 1 m/s before rising sharply, presumably due
to the onset of a turbulent flow. In the laminar regime, the
skin friction experienced by the nanograss plate is
approximately 50% of that experienced by the uncoated Figure 4. Axial drag force plotted as a function
surface, as evidenced by the solid and dotted lines in Fig. of channel velocity for the flat, PVC test plate.
5. At speeds higher than about 1 m/s, the drag reduction is Open symbols: data points. Black curve: spline fit
more modest, but is nevertheless significant, and is present to data. Green curve: estimate of laminar drag.
over the full range of velocities tested. One should Red and blue curves: estimates of turbulent drag.
remember that the nanograss surfaces only coats a small

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piece of the wetted surface, and does not include the leading
edge and development length of the plate. The developed
boundary layer must therefore adjust following the transition
from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic boundary condition, and
hence the local drag reduction (for example, at the downstream
end of the nanograss surface) is likely substantially higher than
is represented by the integrated drag measurement presented
here.

V. Conclusions and additional experiments

Although these results are preliminary, they are extremely

encouraging, suggesting that the nanograss surface is effective
in reducing the skin friction over a submerged body over a
wide range of speeds. In addition to the results presented in
this paper, experiments are currently underway to better
quantify drag reduction, and to characterize in more detail the
turbulent flow structure due to the superhydrophobic surface. Figure 5. Axial drag force plotted as a
These experiments are being conducted both in the NUWC function of channel velocity for the flat, PVC
tunnel and the Brown University Low Speed water channel in test plate (blue points) and for the nanograss
which a fully-turbulent channel flow can be established at a plate (red points). The solid blue curve is a
turbulent Reynolds number, R* (based on friction velocity and quadratic fit to the blue points in the laminar
half-channel height) ranging from 150 to 600. High-resolution regime. The dashed blue curve shows 50% of
PIV is used to measure the velocity field in the near-wall region this drag force. In the laminar regime, the
of the flow and will be carried out for both a flat test surface silicon nanograss plate experiences about half
and nanostructured surfaces. This testing condition the drag force of the flat plate. The red points
corresponds to that simulated in Ref. 2, and so direct below 0.6 m/sec show essentially zero drag.
comparisons will be possible. An example of the near-wall
velocity statistics on the control surface is shown in Fig. 6.
Additional experiments at higher speeds in the NUWC water
tunnel are also planned.

Figure 6. Measurements of the mean and fluctuating velocities over a control surface (smooth
wall) obtained using high-resolution PIV in the Brown University Water Channel Facility.
The mean velocity profiles are compared with the profiles generated using DNS simulations at two
different Reynolds numbers.

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 References
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2
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Ou, J., Perot, B., and Rothstein, J. P., Laminar drag reduction in microchannels using ultrahydrophobic surfaces, Phys.
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