A Method for Reducing the Drag of the Ship Shaped Wall by Using Piezoelectric Ceramic Vibrators

High-frequency and micro-amplitude vibration applied on ship walls in the fluid can interfere with the coherent structure of the boundary layer near the wall to achieve drag reduction. This paper presents a method to reduce the drag of the ship-shaped wall by using piezoelectric ceramic vibrators. Piezoelectric ceramics are glued on the inside wall to excite wall vibration which is perpendicular to the flow direction. The drag reduction characteristics of a ship-like body model were studied. The influences of vibration amplitude of piezoelectric vibrator, vertex angle, and moving velocity on the drag reduction characteristics were analyzed by finite element simulations. The maximum drag reduction rate is up to 48.96% in the case of the vertex angle of 10° and the vibration amplitude of 6 μm. A prototype and the corresponding experimental platform were designed and manufactured. Experiments were carried out, and the comparison of the experimental results and the simulation results verifies that the proposed drag reduction method is feasible and effective. This paper provides an effective way to reduce the resistance of ship navigation.