Whale fin propeller blades?

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A man that has made a life of studying various natural developments noticed years ago that certain whales have odd "bumps" on the leading edge of their fins. He thought that was really odd.

A long story of chopped up whale fins and other oddities led him to discover that these bumps radically change the air/water flow over fins/blades. There is a company using this knowledge to create a fan that moves the same air with a lot less power.

Makes me wonder if there wouldn't be a good application to boat propellers.

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[...] from WhalePower was kind enough to reply with a detailed comment to my earlier post concerning "Whale fin propeller [...]

Whale fin propellor blades

You are correct! The performance of boat propellors could be significantly enhanced through the use of this technology... The earliest wind tunnel tests on tubercle-enhanced airfoils at the US Naval Academy demonstrated an increase in stall angle of 40% (from 12 degrees to 18 degrees). These results can be seen in the May 2004 publication Physics of Fluids. More importantly, at these high angles of attack lift was increased but drag was decreased, meaning drastic improvements in aerodynamic(and hydrodynamic) efficiency. Since that time, we have demonstrated even further improvements that are not public at this time... We are currently busy working with licensees developing applications for industrial fans, wind turbines and computer fans... no contact yet with boat propellor manufacturers... but first to market has significant competitive advantages if anyone is interested...

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