Biomimetic design of diesel engine inlet

In this article, the mechanism of drag reduction of bionic non-smooth surface is applied to the design of the inner surface of diesel engine inlet. Such non-smooth surface is inspired by the soil-contact-surface of dung beetle body, which works with soil or manure, showing excellent feature of drag reduction. The soil-contact-surface of dung beetle is abstracted into simple geometrical model, and applied to the engine inlet structure design. 3D numerical model of fluid flow at the inlet is proposed and simulation is carried out to investigate the flow intake characteristics in terms of swirl ratio and flow coefficient. Results verify that the engine inlet with bionic non-smooth design performs better than that with original inlet design.