Bumpy Fins Increase Efficiency?

[Joe Blake]

Seems that us hooman beans is way behind the 8-ball in designing efficient fins. I've never met a humpback whale up close to check this, but it's very intriguing. Maybe all the hours spent smoothing out the turbine blades have been wasted.

Worth keeping an eye on.

http://www.gizmag.com/bumpy-whale-fins-set-to-spark-a-revolution-in-aerodynamics/9020/

[Martin Gray]

I don't know about this claim, but I have never seen a whale fly. ;)
Martin.

[Joe Blake]

I wonder if the whales designed these on porpoise?

:p

Joe

[Stewart Corman]

no one has been privey to any data on these, but here is a pic of a 10meter prototype:
http://www.gizmag.com/bumpy-whale-fins-set-to-spark-a-revolution-in-aerodynamics/9020/picture/43093/

[Rob Beckers]

For those with a long memory: Mark Parsons posted a link about a year ago that had the same "whale fin" info. See http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:WhalePower_Corp

-RoB-

[Chris Martin]

Seems that us hooman beans is way behind the 8-ball in designing efficient fins. I've never met a humpback whale up close to check this, but it's very intriguing. Maybe all the hours spent smoothing out the turbine blades have been wasted.

Worth keeping an eye on.

http://www.gizmag.com/bumpy-whale-fins-set-to-spark-a-revolution-in-aerodynamics/9020/


Same reason there are dimples on a golf ball. In laminar flow, the point of separation moves closer to the end with dimples reducing drag. Making your object too rough can increase frictional losses though.