Skin friction drag is a component of drag force experienced by an object moving through a fluid, arising from the viscous interaction between the fluid and the surface of the object. It is caused by the shear stress between the fluid and the object’s surface. The skin friction drag force () can be estimated using the following formula:
where:
- is the skin friction coefficient,
- is the density of the fluid (kg/m3).
- V is the velocity of the object relative to the fluid (m/s).
- is the reference area for drag calculation (m2)