In the race to curb energy and oil consumption, zeroing of wall frictional forces is highly desirable. The turbulent skin friction drag at the solid/liquid interface is responsible for substantial energy losses when conveying liquids through hydraulic networks, contributing approximately 10% to the global electric energy consumption. Despite extensive research, efficient drag reduction strategies effectively applicable in different flow regimes are still unavailable. Here, we use a wall-attached magnetic fluid film to achieve a wall drag reduction of up to 90% in channel flow. Using optical measurements supported by modelling, we find that the strong damping of wall friction emerges from the co-existence of slip and waviness at the coating interface, and the latter is a key factor to obtain almost complete wall drag reduction across laminar and turbulent flow regimes. Our magnetic fluid film is promising and ready to be applied in energy-saving and antifouling strategies in fluid transport and medical devices.@en

We revisit the classical entrainment experiments for gravity currents on inclined slopes (Ellison and Turner, J. Fluid Mech. 6, 423-448, 1959). We derive an entrainment relation that couples the entrainment rate E to the production of turbulence kinetic energy, the net effect of buoyancy and inner layer. Using direct numerical simulations that are run for durations long enough for the flow to reach universal self-similarity, we show that the net effect of inner layer processes on entrainment is very small and that buoyancy has an almost negligible effect on E. It is demonstrated that the dominant process causing entrainment is turbulence production due to shear. Second, we observe that for all simulations the eddy diffusivity and dissipation rate can be parameterised using the turbulence kinetic energy and shear parameter. This information can be used to derive an entrainment law which is in good agreement with the Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) results. We discuss the potential reasons for why this result is significantly different from experiments and the classical entrainment law introduced by Ellison and Turner.@en