Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873

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Ocean Engineering

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Drag reduction in turbulent channel ow by gas perusion through porous

non-hydrophobic and hydrophobic interaces: Part I
Xi Chen, Marc Perlin *
Department of Ocean Engineering, Texas A&M University, Galveston, TX, 77554, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Pro. A.I. Incecik Skin-riction drag in liquid ows can be reduced by several methods including bubble injection into the near-wall
region, air layer creation, air cavities, and applied super-hydrophobic coatings. The frst three o these methods
Keywords: each has major drawbacks. In the ourth method, the depletion o the trapped air pockets on the super-
Drag reduction hydrophobic suraces (SHSs) in turbulent ows may cause a signifcant drag increase. To improve FDR in tur-
Surace gas perusion
bulent ows, a novel method is investigated that peruses air through a porous medium with and without a
Hydrophobicity
hydrophobic treatment. A set o experiments has been conducted in a recirculating water tunnel at downstream-
Turbulent channel ow
distance-based Reynolds numbers to 8.2million. The test model was a at porous plate and the total wall shear
stress was measured by a load cell apparatus. Air was perused through such interaces at mass ow rates to 50 L/
min. It is noted that downstream persistence is not an issue with this technique as long as perusion occurs near
uniormly along the surace. The results showed that the method with maximum airow exhibited a total drag
reduction o around 10–25% with an untreated surace and about 20–30% with a treated surace.

1. Introduction
Skin-riction drag contributes roughly 50%–60% o the total resis-
tance o a ship, and techniques or skin-riction drag reduction have
been investigated or several decades. Prior research has utilized both
passive and active approaches or riction drag reduction. Among those
methods, injecting air into the near-wall region o the turbulent
boundary layer, or bubble drag reduction (BDR), shows over 25% drag
reduction (Elbing et al., 2008); and applications o superhydrophobic
suraces can achieve up to 30% drag reduction (Aljallis et al., 2013). The
frst successul BDR was investigated experimentally by injecting micro
hydrogen bubbles into water and signifcant reduction in riction drag
was observed on the model (McCormick and Bhattacharyya, 1973).
Madavan et al. (1984) measured BDR in a zero-pressure-gradient
boundary layer and observed maximum integrated riction reduction
o more than 80%. BDR was also ound independent o the gas densities,
solubilities and the size o the microbubbles (Fontaine and Deutsch,
1992; Shen et al., 2006). However, at higher Reynolds numbers, BDR
shows poor persistence downstream o spanwise air injectors, which
limits the practical use o BDR (Pal et al., 1988; Sanders et al., 2006;
Elbing et al., 2008). To improve BDR efciency and the downstream
persistence, and scale the results to ull-scale ships, myriad modifed
BDR experiments and research have been conducted. Elbing et al. (2008)
injected air bubbles into the boundary layer simultaneously rom two
slot injectors that nearly spanned the test model. Under the same total
injection rate, there was little dierence between the compound injec-
tion and single injection, and the compound injection even showed a
lower drag reduction at a higher total air ux, which indicated that there
were no synergistic eects o compound injection to improve BDR ef-
ciency. Park et al. (2015) designed a repetitive bubble injection (RBI)
method and ound that RBI could maintain the riction drag reduction
even with a lower mean void raction o bubbles. Tanaka et al. (2022)
measured local wall shear stress at 23 locations beneath a 36-m-long
at-bottom model ship with BDR and observed 50% riction drag
reduction immediately downstream o the bubble injector and 20% at
the stern. They also established a ormula to characterize the streamwise
drag reduction decay to evaluate the downstream persistence o BDR
and to estimate its ull-scale perormance.
With slot injection, increasing the volumetric air injection rate will
orm a continuous or nearly continuous air layer between the solid
surace and the outer liquid ow, which yields so-called air-layer drag
reduction (ALDR) and over 80% drag reduction could be achieved on a
smooth model (Elbing et al., 2008). Although ALDR exhibits high drag
reduction efciency in laboratory studies, some technical issues such as

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: perlin@tamu.edu (M. Perlin).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2023.115873
Received 27 July 2023; Received in revised orm 31 August 2023; Accepted 16 September 2023
Available online 21 September 2023
0029-8018/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Chen and M. Perlin Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic o the Recirculating Water Tunnel acility and the experimental setup o the bubble and particle imaging system. The test section is outlined in
red. (b) Image o the camera-lenses assembly. (c) Image o the laser-mirror system.

Fig. 2. (a) Schematic o the test section showing the coordinate system. (b) Enlarged and detailed view o the cross-sectional schematic o the gas perusion system
shown in (a) (outlined in red) as Air Injection System.

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X. Chen and M. Perlin Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873

Table 1 SHSs in turbulent ows is not solely dependent on the

Summary o the untreated and hydrophobic treated suraces. θ∗ is the apparent super-hydrophobicity, but the morphology and stability o the trapped
contact angle and the dash denotes that water penetrated into the uncoated air are also important. It is necessary or a SHS in the turbulent regime to
porous surace, so that no contact angle was measured. Rq is the root-mean- have a low surace roughness and a small contact angle hysteresis
squared roughness measured using a surace roughness gauge (HFBTE, JD220). (Bidkar et al., 2014; Gose et al., 2018).
Experiment Surace θ∗ (deg.) Rq (μm) The Cassie-Baxter state (with trapped gas, the reason or super-
1 Untreated Maryland porous – 15.58 ± 1.07 hydrophobicity) o liquids on SHSs is metastable, and the Wenzel state
structure (without trapped gas) is globally stable (Giacomello et al., 2012). In
2 Maryland porous structure + coating 133.8 ± 1.2 15.70 ± 1.96 their literature review, Wang et al. (2014) concluded that the transition
rom the Cassie-Baxter to the Wenzel state occurs easily, while the
reverse transition is always challenging. Thus, the main limitation o
the instability o the large air layer prevent the widely practical appli-
using SHSs in turbulent ows is the removal or collapse o the air
cations o ALDR on large vessels in the ocean (Jang et al., 2014).
plastron due to the high uctuating pressures and wall shear stress. Once
Moreover, the amount o air to achieve ALDR is much higher than BDR
the gas entrapped in the air plastron is removed, the surace becomes
and all air is lost downstream, so an expensive and large air injection
wetted and loses the ability to reduce the riction drag. As trapped gas on
system is required or a large vessel, and the maintenance o the system
a submerged SHS is lost aster in the surrounding water with less dis-
must be considered. The cost-beneft analysis or ALDR showed that a
solved ambient gases, the longevity o the non-wettability o an under-
net energy savings o 5–20% could be obtained (Ceccio et al., 2010;
water SHS is short. Even in supersaturated water, a SHS will eventually
Mäkiharju et al., 2012; Jang et al., 2014).
become completely wet with fnite measurable time (Sun and Kim,
A hydrophobic or a super-hydrophobic surace is another approach
2013). Thus, a purely passive SHS or drag reduction has limited prac-
to riction drag reduction. Super-hydrophobicity was frst studied by
ticality in real-world conditions, and it is postulated that i one could
Dettre and Johnson Jr (1964) and its ability to reduce drag in laminar
robustly maintain the air plastron (by actively providing gas to
ows has been confrmed by many subsequent researchers. However, in
compensate or its loss), an improved method would be possible. Some
turbulent boundary layer ows the ability o SHSs to generate riction
such techniques have been successul. For example, a hybrid technique
drag reduction is not well understood or characterized. Some numerical
o combining SHS and ALDR (i.e., injecting air upstream o a SHS to orm
simulations and experimental studies observed up to 30% drag reduc-
a stable air flm beneath) could achieve drag reduction to 80%, without
tion on a SHS in the transition regime, but rather a drag increase in the
loss o SHS non-wettability (Fukuda et al., 2000; Du et al., 2017; Peier
turbulent regime (Min and Kim, 2004; Aljallis et al., 2013; Bidkar et al.,
et al., 2020; Sung et al., 2022). Although the required air ux was
2014). The super-hydrophobic coatings orm a texture on the SHS that
decreased by hal compared to ALDR without SHS (Peier et al., 2020), a
retains air, which causes a roughness increase and thus at higher speeds
relatively thick air layer was still necessary and the injection cost was
where the air does not remain trapped, a orm drag increase that osets
considerable. Other approaches such as sel-controlled air-pocket
or overcomes the drag reducing eects. As a result, the drag reduction by
pressure-maintaining systems by pneumatic or electrolysis

Fig. 3. Experimental set-up o the load cell measurement apparatus. A very small gap (with the maximum value o 0.5 mm existing at the trailing edge) was included
between the test surace and the encapsulated upper surace to allow a small displacement o the plate.

Fig. 4. Calibration o the static riction on the linear guide system. (a) Setup o the calibration process. (b) Applied and measured orce in three loading and
unloading cycles. Each data point is an average o 1-min o measurements at 100 Hz.

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X. Chen and M. Perlin Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873

Fig. 5. Non-injection-baseline drag coefcients with error bars on untreated and hydrophobic porous suraces and smooth surace. (Square symbols: untreated
surace; circle symbols: hydrophobic surace; triangle symbols: aluminum smooth surace.) The Schultz-Grunow, 1941 riction law or smooth suraces is also plotted
(solid curve).

Table 2
Baseline ow parameters on untreated and hydrophobic suraces.
Design Um Measured Um (m s) δ99 (mm) θ(mm) τw0 (Pa) Uτ (m s) lν (μm) Reτ

(m s) UT HS UT HS UT HS UT HS UT HS UT HS UT HS

3.88 3.88 3.88 10.54 13.21 1.10 1.25 21.18 21.57 0.15 0.15 6.32 6.30 1668 2097
4.44 4.44 4.43 13.83 13.40 1.41 1.30 26.88 27.00 0.16 0.16 5.61 5.63 2467 2380
4.99 5.00 4.98 14.66 13.02 1.61 1.29 34.74 33.86 0.19 0.18 4.93 5.03 2973 2590
5.54 5.56 5.55 14.08 15.85 1.33 1.58 42.08 41.52 0.21 0.20 4.48 4.54 3143 3492
6.09 6.11 6.12 12.39 18.71 1.12 2.15 50.39 49.69 0.22 0.22 4.10 4.15 3026 4509
6.65 6.66 6.65 11.32 14.68 1.19 1.56 58.34 57.90 0.24 0.24 3.81 3.84 2975 3819
7.20 7.21 7.19 10.29 11.80 1.07 13.8 68.20 67.21 0.26 0.26 3.52 3.57 2923 3307

gas-generation methods (Carlborg et al., 2008; Lee and Kim, 2011;
Carlborg and van der Wijngaart, 2011; Karatay et al., 2013; Vüllers
et al., 2018), were successul in sustaining or regenerating the air plas-
tron under higher liquid pressures. However, a eedback system was
needed, and such techniques were only investigated in small scaled
ows. Li et al. (2019) maintained the pressure o air plastron by a porous
super-hydrophobic Ti surace, and observed the synergistic eect or
drag reduction between the air plastron active control and
super-hydrophobicity. However, the porous super-hydrophobic Ti sur-
ace required complicated abrication procedures and was
millimeter-sized; thus, urther scaled-up validation is still needed.
As BDR only exhibits benefts within the region near the injector
(losing persistence downstream), and SHSs sometimes exhibit no drag
reduction and oten a drag increase in the ully turbulent regime (i.e. at
higher speeds), a new method seems appropriate. It seems reasonable to
replace the spanwise slot injector with a porous hydrophobic plate, and
to peruse gas/air through this medium to obtain uniorm replenishment
along the streamwise and spanwise directions. In this research, a at
porous plate was treated to obtain a hydrophobic surace, and air was
pneumatically perused through it. This surace perusion method
generated a near-uniorm distribution o gas that entered the near-wall
region locally, and maintained the air plastron pressure on the hydro-
phobic surace with lower air ux requirements using a simple injection
system, to achieve improved riction drag reduction at higher speeds.
Results on an untreated surace are used to isolate the eects o
hydrophobicity. The total skin-riction drag acting on the test surace
was measured directly using a load cell apparatus, and then the aver-
aged shear stress was calculated.
2. Experimental methods and set-up
2.1. Experimental apparatus
The experiments were conducted in the Recirculating Water Tunnel
(RWT) (Fig. 1(a)) at Texas A&M University, Galveston, USA. This ow
acility is a pressurized or evacuated, closed circuit unit with the ow
loop in a vertical confguration. The test section that is located above the
working platorm on the second oor has clear acrylic walls (poly-
carbonate walls are also available) and the interior dimensions o the
test section are 100 cm long (L) by 30 cm wide (B) by 30 cm high (H).
The mean ow speed in the test section is continuously adjustable rom
0.80 m/s to 10.00 m/s, which or ull test-section height yields a
channel-height-based Reynolds number (ReH ) up to 3 × 106 .
The mean ow speed was validated using the Particle Image Veloc-
imetry (PIV) technique. Particles and the gas-liquid mixed boundary
layers beneath the porous plate (mounted in the upper-surace o the test
section) were recorded by a monochrome high-speed camera (Phantom,
VEO 410L), through the side o the test section (Fig. 1(b)). The imager
was mounted rigidly to the test section to minimize the vibration be-
tween them when the water tunnel was running. The ow feld was

4
X. Chen and M. Perlin
seeded with titanium dioxide with particle diameters o 0.3–1.0 μm,
density o 4.0 g/cm3 (Atlantic Equipment Engineering, TI-602), and the
ow feld was illuminated by a double pulsed 532 nm Nd: YAG laser
(Litron, NANO L 135-15PIV) (Fig. 1(c)).
The coordinate system in Fig. 2(a) has the Ox axis in streamwise
direction rom the leading edge o the test section, the Oy axis in vertical
direction rom the upper surace, and the Oz axis in spanwise direction
rom the median plane o the channel. The porous plate was 43.18 cm
long located 28.41 cm rom the leading edge, and spanned the center
17.78 cm (59%) o the test section (Fig. 2(a)). A 6061 aluminum air
chamber was mounted onto the porous plate with mechanical asteners,
and structural adhesive (Loctite, EA9460) was used to seal gaps among
the porous plate, air chamber and mechanical asteners (Fig. 2(b)). Due
to the application o the adhesive along the edge o the porous plate, the
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Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873
Fig. 6. Bubbly ow measured at Um o 5.56
m/s with the untreated porous surace. The
ow was rom let to right. (a) Images o the
bubbly ow measured rom the side o test
section at the middle downstream location.
The red solid line represents the actual po-
sition o the porous surace. The tiny white
dots below the bubble layer are particles
used or PIV measurements. (b) Images o
the bubbly ow beneath the entire porous
surace measured upward through the un-
derside o the channel.
eective surace perusion area was decreased to 38.1 cm by 12.7 cm,
about 63% o the total surace area. Compressed air was supplied into
the air chamber through a pressure regulator, a 40 μm inline flter and a
mass ow meter (Omega, FMA 1600 Series) successively, then surace
perused through the porous plate and injected into the water tunnel.
The mass ow meter among three dierent measurement ranges (1–200
SCCM, 0.05–10 SLM and 0.5–100 SLM, where SCCM indicates Standard
Cubic Centimeters per Minute and SLM indicates Standard Liters per
Minute) was selected based on the designed injection rate to increase
measurements accuracy.
2.2. Hydrophobic surface fabrication and characterization
The porous plate used in this study was manuactured by using tiny,
X. Chen and M. Perlin
Fig. 7. %FDR versus gas injection rate on the untreated surace under seven mean ow speeds. The abscissa is plotted in logarithmic scale or clearer data
presentation.
precisely sized spherical particles (Maryland Ceramic & Steatite Inc.,
porous structure o grade 15) and yielded a 8 μm mean pore size and
30% porosity. A hydrophobic coating (METAPOR, nano perl) was
applied onto this bare material to create a hydrophobic surace. (In the
Part II manuscript o this research, an alternate more-permanent tech-
nique was used on a dierent porous material.) The surace to be coated
was frst cleaned using isopropyl alcohol. The hydrophobic coating was
then sprayed evenly onto the surace (until it achieved 30 mL/m2) and a
vacuum was applied rom the backside to penetrate the pores o the
coating. Finally, the coated surace was cured at 25 ◦ C or 24 h. Surace
parameters are summarized in Table 1.
2.3. Wall shear stress measurement
The total skin-riction drag acting on the porous surace was
measured directly by a submersible miniature S-beam load cell (Futek,
LSB210). The porous plate was mounted on the test section upper
window with a linear guide system that allowed a minute streamwise
movement o the plate. The linear guide system consisted o low-riction
round shats and super ball bushing bearings (Thomson, 1BA04AH0L),
while the mounting height o the porous plate was adjustable by adding/
removing shim stock to ensure that the inner surace was ush to the
inner surace o the upper window (Fig. 3). Compared to the elastic-
deormation type skin-riction sensors used in previous studies
(Sanders et al., 2006; Elbing et al., 2008; Hao et al., 2019), this sliding
motion was parallel to the channel to avoid introducing extra orm drag
into the measurements due to the slight rotation o the surace. On the
other hand, static riction rom the shats and bearings was present and
had to be calibrated beore the experiments (Lay et al., 2008).
Another load cell (Load Cell Central, JRS1, marked as the lower load
cell in Fig. 4(a)) was used together with the submersible load cell
(marked as the upper load cell in Fig. 4(a)) or the static riction cali-
bration. The lower load cell was mounted rigidly to the plate with an
angle iron so that its deormation was negligible. Adjusting the linear
translation stage will load or unload the test plate. Then applied orce Fa
and subsequent generated orce Fm were measured by the lower and
upper load cells, respectively. The static riction and applied orce were
in the opposite direction during the loading process, while they were in
the same direction or the unloading process. Three loading and
6
Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873
unloading cycles were conducted and using linear ftting, the static
riction Fsf = 0957 N and the static riction coefcient Csf = 00157
resulted (Fig. 4(b)). Thus, the wall shear stress should be calculated by:
Fm  Csf W
τw = (1)
bl
where W is the total weight o the air chamber assembly, and l and b are
the length and width o the test surace, respectively.
2.4. Friction drag reduction evaluation
The dimensionless skin-riction drag coefcient is defned as:
τw
Cf =
1 (2)
ρ U2
2 l m
where τw is the wall shear stress calculated by Eq. (1), ρl is the liquid
density, and Um is the mean ow speed. The percentage o drag reduc-
tion is defned as:
 )
100 Cf 0  Cf ,gas
%FDR = (3)
063 Cf 0
where the subscript “0” represents zero gas injection and “gas” repre-
sents the coefcients under dierent gas injection rates. %FDR is
rescaled by a denominator o 0.63 as 63% o the test surace was the
eective gas perusion area (the other 37% remained unaltered).
The mean void raction o air in the boundary layer, α, is a widely
used ow parameter to scale the drag reduction or BDR (Deutsch et al.,
2003). α is defned by:
Qa Qa
α= = (4)
Qa + Qw Qa + Um bθ
where Qa is the gas injection rate, Qw is the liquid volumetric ow rate,
and θ is the momentum thickness o the unmodifed boundary layer
(without air injection). When the gas was injected through a surace area
instead o a line source, it is reasonable to assume that the injected air
bubbles are moving at the mean ow speed, then the so-called nominal
bubble layer thickness tb is another parameter to scale the results (Elbing
X. Chen and M. Perlin
Fig. 8. (a) %FDR scaled by the mean void raction α using Eq. (4); (b) %FDR scaled by the nominal bubble layer thickness tb using Eq. (5). Both abscissas are plotted
using a logarithmic scale.. (Error bars are presented or experiments that were repeated.)
et al., 2008).
Qa
tb =
bUm
In this paper %FDR will be scaled by α and tb using Eqs. (4) and (5),
respectively. Data collapse will be compared using these two
parameters.
3. Results and discussion
The wall shear stress and bubble layer morphology were measured
under seven mean ow speeds (3.88 m/s, 4.44 m/s, 4.99 m/s, 5.54 m/s,
6.09 m/s, 6.65 m/s and 7.20 m/s) at gas injection rates to 50 SLM
(standard liters per minute). Results without gas injection are defned as
baseline results, rom which the mean ow speed and unmodifed
boundary layer thickness were calculated.
Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873
3.1. Baseline results
(5) The non-injection riction drag coefcients or the untreated and
hydrophobic suraces (Cf0,UT and Cf0,HS ) are plotted together with
respect to the downstream-distance-based Reynolds number (Rex ) at the
middle o the test surace (Fig. 5). Drag coefcients measured on a
smooth aluminum plate (Cf0,AL , the absolute roughness Rq =
028 ± 005μm) are also plotted in Fig. 5 or reerence. As the surace
relative roughness based on the plate length was quite small, the porous
suraces (with and without the treatment) can be considered as hydro-
dynamically smooth suraces and the riction law by Schultz-Grunow
(1941) is used to predict the local riction coefcient:
Cf 0,smooth,local = 037(log Rex )2584 (6)
Here Rex is the downstream-distance-based Reynolds number. Then the
averaged riction coefcient is calculated by integrating the coefcient
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X. Chen and M. Perlin Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873

Fig. 9. Bubbly ow measured under the same conditions as Fig. 6, but with the hydrophobic porous surace.

in Eq. (6) rom the leading edge to the trailing edge o the test surace “hydrodynamically smooth” assumption is correct. And there is little
and divided by the surace length: beneft as regards the drag reduction by the hydrophobic treatment on
∫ such a porous surace without gas injection.
1 x l
Cf 0,smooth = Cf 0,smooth,local dx (7) Table 2 summarizes other baseline ow parameters measured on the
l x 0 two porous suraces (UT: untreated surace, HS: hydrophobic surace),
where δ99 is the 99% boundary layer thickness, θ is the boundary layer
Here x 0 and x l are the downstream distance o the leading edge and
trailing edge, respectively. Drag coefcients measured on both suraces momentum thickness, Uτ is the shear velocity calculated by Uτ =
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
collapse reasonably well to the smooth surace riction law. This in- τw0 ρl = Um Cf0 2, lν is the viscous length scale calculated by lν =
dicates that or this turbulent-boundary-layer ow, the above νUτ and ν is the liquid kinematic viscosity, Reτ is the riction Reynolds

8
X. Chen and M. Perlin
Fig. 10. %FDR versus Qa on the hydrophobic surace or the seven mean ow speeds. (Measurements were repeated or the entire set o experiments and thus error
bars are presented or all measured data here and in Fig. 11.)
number calculated by Reτ = Uτ δ99 ν = δ99 lν . Compared to manuac-
turers’ design speeds, consistent mean ow speeds by PIV measurements
were obtained on both porous suraces. The measured 99% boundary
layer thickness and momentum boundary layer thickness slightly
increased, then decreased with increasing mean ow speed.
3.2. Gas perfusion drag reduction on an untreated porous surface
Twenty-three gas injection rates rom 0.05 SLM to 50 SLM were
selected to investigate the relationship between drag reduction and the
injection rate. The injection rate was maintained by a pressure regulator
(Norgren, R73G-3AT-RMG). The near-wall bubbly ow was recorded by
the high-speed camera through the side and the bottom o the channel
(Fig. 6). For a moderate mean ow speed, i.e., the measured Um o 5.56
m/s (design Um o 5.54 m/s) in Table 2, using Eq. (4) to calculate the
mean void raction yields α rom 0.0009 to 0.4706, and using Eq. (5) to
calculate the nominal bubble layer thickness yields tb rom 0.0012 mm
to 1.1854 mm. For some higher injection rates (e.g., 20 SLM and 50 SLM
in Fig. 6(a)), there was a dark region between the porous surace and the
bubble layer. As images were recorded rom the spanwise median plan,
large numbers o unilluminated air bubbles existed between the laser
sheet and the camera lens that resulted the inner dark region in Fig. 6(a).
(To demonstrate that bubbles were injected through the entire porous
surace, and to confrm that bubbles still remained adjacent to the wall
downstream, or this porous surace and another porous material, in Part
II o this study, images o the outermost spanwise layer o bubbles were
recorded and compared among dierent downstream locations. This
verifed the presence o wall-adjacent bubbles throughout.) Fig. 6(b)
shows that this porous material does not have a constant air perme-
ability along the entire surace. Thus, this surace perusion method did
not create a perectly uniorm, but rather a near uniorm (and better
uniormity under higher injection rates) bubble injection across the
entire porous area. The near uniorm bubble injection could inhibit the
migration o air bubbles rom the near-wall region that occurs down-
stream when using a traditional spanwise slot injector. Hence, it is ex-
pected that i gas was perused through a porous material with a more
constant air permeability, the bubble surace migration could be mini-
mized, and the drag reduction by surace perusion would not have
downstream persistence issues. (Such porous material will be
9
Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873
investigated in Part II.)
To present FDR results, frstly, %FDR versus gas injection rate are
plotted or each mean ow speed (Fig. 7). As larger drag reduction
tended to be obtained under higher gas injection rates, measurements o
Qa > 10 SLM were repeated and error bars are presented or these
repeated measurements. Results generally show that increasing the
volumetric air ux will lead to a larger %FDR, which is consistent with
the previous BDR results using line or point source bubble injection
(Sanders et al., 2006; Elbing et al., 2008; Tanaka et al., 2022). A
maximum o 10%–25% drag reduction was obtained when using the
highest injection rate (50 SLM). Notice that the estimated injection rate
to transition rom BDR to ALDR in this experiment is about 150–300
SLM (corresponding to the lowest mean ow speed and highest mean
ow speed, respectively); consequently only 17%–33% o the ALDR
required injection rate was used in this study. It is also noted that or the
frst three mean ow speeds (Um = 3.88 m/s, 4.44 m/s and 5.56 m/s), %
FDR did not improve much with increasing injection rate (that is, the
drag reduction remained around 5%–10%). For the last our ow speeds,
the drag reduction was near zero at the lower injections (i.e. when
Qa < 10 SLM), and increased dramatically with increasing injection
rate. Under the highest injection rate, larger %FDR was usually obtained
at higher ow speeds. This tendency suggests that the surace gas
perusion method could maintain or improve the %FDR at higher mean
ow speeds (larger turbulence) with a relatively lower air ux. In terms
o data variance, due to the disturbance introduced into the water ow
by gas injection, readings rom the load cell apparatus had larger uc-
tuations under higher injection rates. Also, under lower ow speeds, the
total riction drag values on the test surace were relatively small, so
large error bars were calculated or data points o higher injection rates
and lower ow speeds.
Secondly, to scale results, %FDR are plotted versus the mean void
raction α and the nominal bubble layer thickness tb , respectively
(Fig. 8). Results show a air data collapse across dierent ow speeds,
which suggests that both parameters can be used to scale %FDR. The aim
o using two parameters here, instead o solely using the parameter α is a
consequence o its wide usage in historical BDR studies. That is, tradi-
tional BDR experiments using a single injector have specifedgas injected
upstream o the surace. Then, the void raction may not correctly
characterize the bubble/water mixture or the gas surace perusion
X. Chen and M. Perlin
Fig. 11. %FDR on the hydrophobic surace scaled by (a), the mean void raction α and (b), the nominal bubble layer thickness tb .
method implemented in this study. The second parameter tb is a
dimensional variable with units o length, and better represents the
mean imaginary bubble layer thickness beneath the entire porous sur-
ace. (Moreover, in Part II o this study, FDR will be investigated in a
small, ully-developed turbulent ow and in that ow, α could not be
defned by the momentum thickness – only tb is a universally defned
parameter.) For lower injection rates which make α < 01, by defnition
in Eqs. (4) and (5), there is an approximately constant ratio between α
and tb , that αtb ≈ 1θ. Data collapse by α and tb are similar or this
injection range. However, or the higher injection range, these two pa-
rameters provide slightly dierent collapses.
3.3. Gas perfusion drag reduction on hydrophobic porous surface
The bubbly ows and %FDR measured on the porous surace with
hydrophobic treatment are shown in Figs. 9–11. Similar to the untreated
surace, a near-uniorm gas perusion could be obtained through the
hydrophobic surace. And a maximum o 20%–30% drag reduction was
obtained under the highest injection rate (Fig. 10). Compared to the
untreated surace, the %FDR was improved about 10% by hydrophobic
10
Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873
treatment or all ow speeds, which indicates that the longevity o un-
derwater hydrophobic suraces or drag reduction was promoted by gas
perusion, i.e., a synergistic eect existed between surace hydropho-
bicity and gas perusion. Scaled %FDR results with respect to the mean
void raction and nominal bubble layer thickness are plotted in Fig. 11.
For all ow speeds, %FDR has a similarly increasing rate with respect to
α or tb ; those results collapse better than or the untreated surace.
Furthermore, or higher injection rates (α > 02 or tb > 04mm), tb pro-
vides a better collapse than α, which suggests that tb is a more appro-
priate scaling parameter or this study.
To investigate the synergistic eect between the hydrophobicity and
the gas perusion, %FDR on the untreated and hydrophobic suraces are
compared under each mean ow speed separately (Fig. 12). Here the
nominal bubble layer thickness tb is selected as the scaling parameter. In
terms o injection rate, under lower injection rates (tb < 001mm), there
was little synergistic eect (i.e., the hydrophobic treatment generated
no improvement as regards drag reduction.); under higher injection
rates (tb > 001mm) however, more %FDR was measured on the hy-
drophobic surace, and the higher the injection rate, the stronger the
synergistic eect. In terms o the ow speed, the synergistic eect
X. Chen and M. Perlin Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873

Fig. 12. Friction drag reduction comparison between the untreated and hydrophobic suraces. Results are scaled by tb . Open symbols: hydrophobic surace; closed
symbols: untreated surace.. (Error bars are shown were repeated experiments were conducted.)

11
X. Chen and M. Perlin
existed under lower ow speeds but disappeared gradually with
increased ow speed. This suggests that gas perusion through a porous
medium could replenish the air pockets lost rom the hydrophobic sur-
ace under lower turbulence intensity, but with increased turbulence
intensity, the small gas cavities within the surace could not be main-
tained, so the synergistic eects disappeared.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, riction drag reduction by gas perusion through a
porous surace was experimentally studied in turbulent channel ow.
The morphology o the bubbly ow showed that a completely uniorm
gas injection was not obtained across the entire porous area due to the
inconsistency o the air permeability o the selected porous material;
however, the near uniorm gas injection could still inhibit the bubble
migration rom the near wall region that always occurs downstream
rom the injector. As bubbles remained in the near wall region down-
stream as they were constantly entering the local ow, the traditional
BDR downstream persistence issue was overcome, and the total wall
shear stress could be reduced by 10%–25%. Under higher ow speeds
with higher turbulence intensity, %FDR could still be maintained to such
levels. In addition, the required air ux or this method was less than the
traditional ALDR spanwise slot injector, which could lower the pumping
cost or practical applications.
Further, to obtain a better data collapse, the %FDR results were
scaled by the mean void raction o the boundary layer ow and the
nominal bubble layer thickness. For lower injection rates, both scaling
parameters were ound to provide a reasonable data collapse; however,
or higher injection rates on the hydrophobic surace, the nominal
bubble layer thickness is a more appropriate variable or scaling. The
latter will be selected as the scaling parameter in uture research as it is
well defned in several turbulent ows (e.g., turbulent boundary layer
ow and ully-developed turbulent ow).
To investigate the synergistic eect between surace perusion and
surace hydrophobicity, the porous surace was treated to be hydro-
phobic and %FDR was measured using the same experimental parame-
ters. Results showed that the synergistic eect existed under higher
injection rates and lower ow speeds. Friction drag reduction to 30%
was realized. As the hydrophobic treatment used in this study was a
temporary coating method, the surace hydrophobicity may have
changed slightly during each measurement. A more-permanent surace
treatment technique will be used on a dierent porous material with a
more consistent air permeability in Part II o this research.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xi Chen: conducted the experiments and wrote the frst drats o the
manuscript as advised by Marc Perlin, This eort was part o his Ph.D.
Dissertation. Marc Perlin: instructed Xi Chen, in collaboration with
him, which experiments to conduct, Marc Perlin was responsible or the
fnal organization and editing o the manuscript.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing fnancial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to inuence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
Maryland Ceramic & Steatite Company, Inc. provided their com-
mercial grade 15 porous structures as the porous plate tested in this
12
Ocean Engineering 287 (2023) 115873
study. Dadeks Machine Works Corp. machined some parts o the gas
injection system and the wall shear stress measurement system. This
help is appreciated and acknowledged.
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