Underwater drag-reducing effect of superhydrophobic submarine model.

To address the debates on whether superhydrophobic coatings can reduce fluid drag for underwater motions, we have achieved an underwater drag-reducing effect of large superhydrophobic submarine models with a feature size of 3.5 cm × 3.7 cm × 33.0 cm through sailing experiments of submarine models, modified with and without superhydrophobic surface under similar power supply and experimental conditions. The drag reduction rate reached as high as 15%. The fabrication of superhydrophobic coatings on a large area of submarine model surfaces was realized by immobilizing hydrophobic copper particles onto a precross-linked polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface. The pre-cross-linking time was optimized at 20 min to obtain good superhydrophobicity for the underwater drag reduction effect by investigating the effect of pre-cross-linking on surface wettability and water adhesive property. We do believe that superhydrophobic coatings may provide a promising application in the field of drag-reducing of vehicle motions on or under the water surface.