Do some materials generate less friction in water than others?

Question

Would it hyp. be possible to engineer a coating for a boat that would make the boat generate less friction in the water?

Answer 1

yes. you are to late though, they already have it. the biggest thing to slow boats down is due to Bernoulli's principle. as the boat speeds up, it creates a vacuum under the hull. this vacuum causes the water to boil (think of it as pulling the water molecules apart untill you have vapor). the boiling is what creates the most drag. so a coating wont really help. what they have done is design complex hulls for speed boats that use the boils water to an advantage. the hull rides on pockets of air made by the bubbles so it touches the water less. sorry i couldnt find a picture of one. they look really cool i had a friend that used to have one.

Answer 2

Yes it would. There are swim suits that reduce your drag in the water. Not sure what they're made of though. Ideally you'd want a material that repels water (if water has a charge that is) so that it was effectively running on a layer of air, but that may not be possible.

However very little drag is generated by the boat running along the water, most of it is the boat having to move the water out of the way.

Seb

Answer 3

What everyone else said is very good.

What I thought I'd add is that the Russians made torpedoes that expelled a bubble of air around the head of the torpedo. This made it so the torpedo was effectively flying through air instead of water and made it much faster. Very cool.

Answer 4

  I can only add that barnacles build up on the hulls of ships does slow them down and increases fuel consumption.

Answer 5

Yes, water acts just like any other "surface" so therefore friction can be reduced, however, consider the amount of friction from the material (relatively small) to the friction based on the shape of the object (huge), and you realize fluid dynamics becomes a much cheaper option...