Hydrophobic?

[jkrienert]

So... there seems to have been a recent upsurge in the availability of several different manufactures of hydrophobic spray on coatings.   Durability probably is coupled with price - and some treatments require having the object sent to a service facility to properly have the application done. I suppose that these professionally applied coatings have a much longer service life.

With that in mind (and not much else on the science of hydrophobic coatings or hydrophobic materials... yet):
            Would hydrophobically coating the turbine blades, rotor prop, waterwheel circumference, ect. of a submerged portion of one of the various designs of generators result in any reduction of surface drag coefficients of the said component in motion - thereby increasing efficiency?

Thanks!

[jkrienert]

Judging by the quantity of thread views, and lack of a response - I have a feeling this question might have a simple answer I am blind to.
I take no offence to hearing what might/should be obvious!
Cheers and thanks-

[joestue]

hydrophobically coating the surface of a submerged relatively high velocity moving object,
Will not prevent cavitation, which is generally the biggest issue, and might even increase it.
probably won't significantly change other physical constants such as Reynold's numbers.

understand that the water molecules are already travelling at an average velocity of the speed of sound in water, they can't slip past an object at that speed regardless what the object is coated with, so they will stop, and form a layer of water that is moving with the object.

[dnix71]

Like joestue said, no. But a really good no stick coat on a wood air turbine blade might save your blade from icing up.

Shedding water might get you some tiny efficiency in an air turbine, too, since the blade won't have water adhering to the surface in the rain.

[jkrienert]

Interesting. Thanks for the clarity!
It seems then that such applications (if any at all) would be best suited for a air based foil generator rather then a submerged one?