Taiji Tanaka

Although the practical use of bubbly drag reduction for marine vessels has begun to spread, it is unclear how bubbles migrate along spatially developing turbulent boundary layers. We measured the spatiotemporal distribution of the local void fraction beneath a 4-m-long fully transparent flat-bottom model ship towed in a 100-m-long water tank with a ship speed of up to 3.00 m/s. Bubbles were injected with both constant and periodically fluctuated air flow rates into the turbulent boundary layers.

This study aims to reveal the development process of artificial void waves generated in a fully developed turbulent channel flow. Void waves generated with periodically fluctuated air flow rate were optically visualized by a high-speed video camera at three locations along the channel. The measured spatio-temporal fluctuations of void waves maintained the initial frequency given at the injection during the downstream propagation. The diffusion coefficients of void distributions were calculated t

Drag reduction by bubble injection in turbulent boundary layers was investigated using a 36-m-long flat-bottom model ship. The model ship was towed at 8.0 m/s, resulting in a downstream-distance-based Reynolds number as high as 2.9 × 108. The total resistance exerting on the model ship was reduced, and the resistance reduction increased with the air flow rate for the bubble injection. The local wall shear stress on the bottom plate was measured at multiple locations to clarify the streamwise tra

Abstract To investigate the development process of a void wave, spatio-temporal fluctuation of void fraction, we examined experimentally a turbulent boundary layer with bubble injections. The experiments performed on a flat bottom of 4-mlong transparent model ship towed in a tank of 100 m length with the speed of up to 3.00 m/s. In bubbles injection with constant air flow rate, void fluctuations with 4 Hz or 8 Hz appeared dependent on the towing speed. With periodically fluctuated air flow rate,