Quantification of fabric morphology and prediction of drag crisis based on the fractal dimension

Abstract

This paper focused on investigating the relationship between fabric morphology and aerodynamic drag. The fractal theory is used to quantify the fabric surface morphology, and its influence on the minimum drag coefficient and critical Reynolds number is evaluated. In addition, the effectiveness of the fractal dimension in predicting the drag crisis is verified. It is observed that with the increase of the fractal dimension, the minimum drag coefficient increases, and the correlation coefficient can reach 0.9728, while the corresponding critical Reynolds number decreases, and the correlation coefficient can reach 0.9334. In addition, the accuracy of predicting drag crisis by the fractal dimension is verified and the relative error of predicting the drag crisis by the fractal dimension is less than 10%, which is significantly better than that by roughness.