Turn on a water faucet fully and watch as the water as it speeds up. The water is disturbed by air and surface texture and becomes less smooth rippled with eddies, swirling, and random motions. At that point the water is in a turbulent flow.
That is not to say that turbulence is all bad and should always be eliminated. Take for example the dimples on a golf ball, while traveling at high speeds and rotating there is a tremendous amount of pressure on the front of the ball much more so than on the rear of the ball. The dimples create a turbulent boundary layer that brings the high speed air stream around the ball closer to the surface. This in turn increases the pressure behind the ball propelling it forward further.
So why not put dimples on boat hulls, cars, airplanes and anything else that has performance reduction because of drag? Dimples wouldn’t work on Boat hulls because they are flat, slow, and don’t rotate. Dimples on a boat hull could create more drag.
We won’t get into cars, airplanes, and other things as Boat hulls are our main focus but the same principles apply. It is the shape speed and rotation of the ball in addition to the dimples that allows turbulence to work on golf balls. The same principles apply to tennis balls and their fuzz and Baseballs with their stitching.
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For questions about Hyde Drift Boats R&D please call (800) 444-HYDE or (800) 444-4933.
