George Lauder has teamed with Harvard engineers and colleagues from the University of South Carolina to find a bioinspired structure that could improve aerodynamic performance of airplanes, wind turbines, drones, and cars. The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, looked at sharkskin denticles (thousands and thousands of small scales) to determine a decades-old mystery of their function. Past research focused mainly on drag-reducing properties of denticles, but Lauder and his team instead looked at whether the denticles’ shapes were best suited for increasing lift. The study showed shark-inspired vortex generators achieved lift-to-drag ratio improvements up to 323 percent and has opened the door to exploring more bioinspired aerodynamic designs. Harvard Gazette
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