How a 'shark skin' coating helps aircraft reduce emissions

The Manila Times

How a 'shark skin' coating helps aircraft reduce emissions  As a transparent film is stuck onto the side of an aircraft fuselage in Sydney, Australia, sharks might not immediately come to mind.  But for Australian startup MicroTau, whose mission is to reduce global aviation emissions, aircraft and sharks go hand in hand.  Taking their inspiration from shark skin, MicroTau has developed an artificial shark skin-inspired, drag-reducing technology in the form of an adhesive film that can be applied onto the exterior of aircraft.  The Riblet Modification Package works on the same principles as the sandpaper-like surface of a shark’s skin that reduces drag, helping them move efficiently through water. These riblets align with the direction of flow — water flow for sharks, air flow for aircraft — thus reducing drag.  Stuck onto an aircraft, MicroTau's Riblet Film improves efficiency with less turbulence, reduces fuel emissions and thus potentially makes flights cheaper.  REUTERS / MICROTAU  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe  Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net  Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  Soundcloud: https://tmt.ph/soundcloud   #TheManilaTimes #tmtnews  #aircraft

Transcript

00:00I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

00:30yep absolutely it's a game changer a lot of aviation airlines are looking for ways to reduce

00:48their carbon emissions but a lot of the solutions that are available at the moment take a very long

00:53time and are quite expensive our product is something that can go on the trillion dollars

00:57worth of aircraft that are operational right now and it's a game changer because we don't need to

01:02make new aircraft we can apply things that are already out in operation

01:14yeah so sharks have this rough almost sandpaper like surface on their skin that reduces drag and

01:23helps them swim efficiently through water that same principle can be applied to the skies and

01:28that's an area that's been researched after over the last 40 decades over the last four decades

01:34we're now at a point where manufacturing technologies and material science has come a long way and we're

01:40able to manufacture this kind of product at scale and apply it to the exterior of an aircraft where

01:46it's durable enough to withstand those conditions so what we do is we go through a design process for

01:50every aircraft we optimize the design specifically for that aircraft so we map out how the air flows

01:55over the plane and from that we generate a map of where all the film will go we then install it just

02:01like a standard livery or decal is installed on a plane and so the installation method is very similar to

02:07what currently exists in standard procedures in aviation it's made from a process that's very similar to

02:13how computer chips are made so we take an ultraviolet light pattern and shine it on our specially formulated

02:19resin which then hardens in the shape of the shark skin as we go through a manufacturing process what

02:25we get out the end is an adhesive backed transparent film which we then apply to the exterior of the

02:30plane so friction is generated as air flows over an aircraft and that increases drag which then

02:36increases the amount of fuel that's required to fly a plane our material reduces the friction therefore

02:42the drag and that requires less fuel to get from a to b so we've demonstrated efficiency gains of four

02:48percent now if we look at global emission and jet fuel costs we're spending hundreds of billions of

02:54dollars on jet fuel and generating a billion metric tons of carbon emissions per year so a four percent

03:00reduction is a significant impact we've recently partnered with spanish airlines welling who are

03:07helping certify our product for use on their aircraft they'll be microtales first european airline

03:13customer beyond this we're going to be scaling up our manufacturing line to make sure that we can

03:18deliver at scale and then beyond this we're working on our next generation products so we talked about

03:24four percent efficiency we're working on products that are at five percent and beyond then as we look

03:30forward into the far future aviation is not the only application for reducing emissions we can also be

03:36working in marine and extend the surfaces that we're developing into other areas as well

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