The quest for drag reduction is driven by environmental concerns, in general, and the need to reduce fuel consumption in transport applications, in particular. Turbulent friction is especially important in civil aviation, accounting for over 50% of the total drag in cruise. In this context, spatially and/or temporally varying in-plane wall motion, while undoubtedly difficult to implement in practice, has attracted major interest, because of the large drag-reduction margins it yields. It is also a forcing method that is of fundamental interest, as it provokes intriguing interactions between the spanwise Stokes layer induced by the wall motion and the near-wall turbulence-regeneration mechanisms. This article provides a relatively brief, ‘entry-level’, review of research in this area, principally over the past two decades. While far from being exhaustive, the review conveys a reasonably detailed picture of some major physical issues as well as of the outcome of the most important computational and experimental studies. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of how results obtained in idealised laboratory conditions and by simulation at relatively low Reynolds-number values pertain to high values typical of high-speed transport.

总体上，对环境的关注以及尤其是在运输应用中减少燃料消耗的需求推动了对减阻的追求。湍流摩擦在民航中尤其重要，占巡航总阻力的50％以上。在这种情况下，尽管在空间和/或时间上变化的平面内壁运动无疑在实践中难以实现，但由于其产生的大的减阻余量而引起了人们的极大兴趣。它也是引起人们极大兴趣的一种强迫方法，因为它引起了壁运动和近壁湍流再生机制引起的跨度斯托克斯层之间的有趣相互作用。本文主要在过去的二十年中提供了相对简短的，“入门级”的有关该领域研究的综述。回顾不仅详尽无遗，还传达了一些主要物理问题以及最重要的计算和实验研究结果的合理详细的图片。特别强调的问题是，在理想的实验室条件下以及通过相对较低的雷诺数数值进行仿真所获得的结果如何与高速运输中的典型高数值有关。