Thriving artificial underwater drag-reduction materials inspired from aquatic animals: progresses and challenges

In the past decades, drag-reduction surfaces have attracted more and more attention due to their potentiality and wide applications in various fields such as traffic, energy transportation, agriculture, textile industry, and military. However, there are still some drag-reduction materials that need to be deeply explored. Fortunately, natural creatures always have the best properties after long-term evolution; aquatic organisms have diversified surface microstructures and drag-reducing materials, which provide design templates for the development of thriving artificial underwater drag-reduction materials. Aquatic animals are tamed by the current while fighting against the water, and thus have excellent drag reduction that is unparalleled in water. Inspired by biological principles, using aquatic animals as a bionic object to develop and reduce frictional resistance in fluids has attracted more attention in the past few years. More and more aquatic animals bring new inspiration for drag-reduction surfaces and a tremendous amount of research effort has been put into the study of surface drag-reduction, with an aim to seek the surface structure with the best drag-reduction effect and explore the drag-reduction mechanism. This present paper reviews the research on drag-reduction surfaces inspired by aquatic animals, including sharks, dolphins, and other aquatic animals. Aquatic animals as bionic objects are described in detail, with a discussion on the drag-reduction mechanism and drag-reduction effect to understand the development of underwater drag-reduction fully. In bionic manufacturing, the effective combination of various preparation methods is summarized. Moreover, bionic surfaces are briefly explained in terms of traffic, energy sources, sports, and agriculture. In the end, both existing problems in bionic research and future research prospects are proposed. This paper may provide a better and more comprehensive understanding of the current research status of aquatic animals-inspired drag reduction.