Skin Friction Drag Measurements on Flat Plate Turbulent Boundary Layer and Axisymmetric Body of Revolution

Skin friction drag can contribute to more than 50% of the total drag for cruising aircraft and marine vehicles. Accurate experimental measurements of skin friction drag are of interest to the drag reduction community and important for scaling wall-bounded turbulence and validating numerical models. In this presentation, skin friction measurements on a flat plate turbulent boundary layer and an axisymmetric body of revolution (BOR) are discussed. In-house precision made drag balances consisting of multi-axis piezoelectric load cells were installed and tested in the 12 inch water tunnel at The Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Lab. Flow speeds up to 17 m/s were tested, which correspond to Reynolds number ranges of Re_X = 1.6*10^6 − 1.3*10^7 and Re_tau =1100−5800. In addition, flow field measurements via particle image velocity (PIV) were performed in order to characterize the turbulent boundary layer developing before and over the drag balances.