Something Fishy: How to Keep Planes From Burning the Planet
If you were an engineer, and you wanted to find a way to improve an aircraft’s fuel economy, I’m pretty sure the ocean is the last place you’d look for inspiration.
And yet, that’s exactly where the next breakthrough might come from.
It’s sad but true: The world is burning.
And the aviation industry is fanning the flames.
Aircraft generate 2.5% of total yearly carbon emissions, and are expected to take up a quarter of our carbon budget by 2050.
This is a really pressing problem, and one that we’re going to have to solve if we want to keep the planet un-incinerated for our kids.
Unfortunately, some of the current solutions, like biofuels and fully electric aircraft, while promising, don’t make much economic sense for airlines, since there are much cheaper alternatives, like fossil fuels and conventional jets.
Airlines are businesses, and as such go to any lengths necessary to cut costs and increase profits — seats barely larger than the baby crying in the next row, food less edible than the cutlery, and any other woes that frequent fliers can relate to.
As such, it makes perfect sense to offer an alternative solution for airlines to cut carbon emissions, that also helps them roll in the dough.
And this is where our fishy friends come in.
As it turns out, fish scales might be the key that unlocks this whole puzzle.
A fish’s scales have been honed by millions of years of evolution to generate the least drag possible, while still being lightweight and offering protection.
This makes perfect sense — the fish can swim faster and for longer on less food and energy.
But the physics behind it might be what makes the greatest impact.
When an object moves through a fluid, like water or air, it generates Tollmien-Schlichting waves, known to us laypeople as turbulence.
According to the University of Stuttgart, in Germany, fish scales cause the fluid passing over them to zigzag, cancelling out the Tollmien-Schlichting waves.
In essence, this means that the fish moves through the water while generating a fraction of the drag it normally would.
All this talk about fish physics is great, but how does it apply to planes?
Well, planes (mostly) operate in air, which is just a thin fluid. So, by applying a fish-scale pattern on the outside of a plane, it would reduce the amount of drag the plane produces.
This allows the plane to burn less fuel per flight, therefore, the overall carbon impact of the plane is reduced.
This might, in fact, be the way of the future. British aircraft manufacturer BAE Systems is looking into creating a fish scale-textured coating that can be applied to a jet’s exterior, basically turning them into massive flying fish.
So, in the future, when you take to the skies, thank the fish on your meal tray for helping to save the world.
