Conformal Nanostructured Metal Rubber™ Skin Friction Sensors for Near-Wall Flow Analysis of Underwater Vessels

NanoSonic plans to develop a novel, lightweight, and conformal sensor skin that would measure skin friction to assess near-wall surface flows of underwater vessels. Specifically, a thin nanostructured sensor skin that can be conformally attached onto a substrate or vessel to monitor skin friction will be demonstrated. Other wall shear-stress measurement techniques, such as oil-film interferometry, micro-electro mechanical systems, and liquid-crystal coatings, tend to be highly complex, non-practical for underwater applications, and do not typically have the necessary accuracy levels needed. On the other hand, NanoSonic’s Metal Rubber™ (MR™) skin friction sensors are conformal, ultrathin, contains no moving parts (spatially-distributed sensor elements and interconnect components are all integrated into skin), and does not require cameras or imaging systems to analyze near-wall flow. The ability to precisely measure and map skin friction over surfaces of underwater components is important to the design and control of ship structures, underwater control surfaces and propulsion systems, specifically for flow control and drag reduction. During Phase I, NanoSonic would analytically model and experimentally demonstrate the performance of MR™ sensor skin materials in response to near-surface flow fields for multi-directional sensing. The shear-strain detection properties of MR™ sensor skins can be controlled through molecular-level chemical processing.