Compliant wall surface motion and its effect on the structure of a turbulent boundary layer

The status of the continuing compliant wall drag reduction research at NASA-Langley Research Center is discussed. Preliminary surface motion calculations are reported along with compliant surface design concepts and their numerical models. A compliant drag reduction theory based on stabilizing the turbulent substructure is proposed and previous experiments have been examined relative to that theory. Results of recent low speed compliant surface experiments have been reported which include initial attempts to measure local compliant surface motion.