Compliant riblets: Problem formulation and effective macrostructural properties

Small-scale, deformable riblets, embedded within the viscous sublayer of a turbulent boundary layer and capable to adapt to the overlying motion, are studied. The wall micro-grooves are made of a linearly elastic material and can undergo small deformations; their collective behavior is assumed to occur over a large, elastic wavelength. The presence of two length scales allows for the use of a multiscale homogenization approach yielding microscopic problems for convolution kernels and parameters, which must then be employed in macroscopic boundary conditions to be enforced at a virtual wall through the riblets. The results found suggest that, in analogy to the case of rigid riblets, compliant, blade-like wall corrugations are more effective than triangular riblets in reducing skin friction drag, provided the spanwise periodicity of the indentations is sufficiently small for the creeping flow approximation to be tenable.