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Biological Growth

Morphomechanics of growing curled petals and leaves

Submitted by Fan Xu on

Petals and leaves are usually curled and exhibit intriguing morphology evolution upon growth, which contributes to their important biological functions. To understand the underlying morphoelastic mechanism and to determine the crucial factors that govern the growth-induced instability patterning in curved petals and leaves, we develop an active thin shell model that can describe variable curvatures and spontaneous growth, within the framework of general differential geometry based on curvilinear coordinates and hyperelastic deformation theory.

Numerics of growth-induced deformations

Submitted by mokarram76 on

Dear iMechanicians,

Growth-induced deformation or morphoelasticity  is an interesting phenomenon ranging from living tissues to biological plants in nature. We recently publish a paper in JMPS that solves some challenging boundary value problems by addressing few key issues in computational morphoelasticity. It might be interesting for you.  

PDF : authors.elsevier.com/a/1cKSi57Zjx1mN

Water Affects Morphogenesis of Growing Aquatic Plant Leaves

Submitted by Fan Xu on

Lotus leaves floating on water usually experience short-wavelength edge wrinkling that decays toward the center, while the leaves growing above water normally morph into a global bending cone shape with long rippled waves near the edge. Observations suggest that the underlying water (liquid substrate) significantly affects the morphogenesis of leaves.

Fully-funded PhD position in Computational Mechanics [#1] for EU students for September 2016, University of Southampton, UK

Submitted by Georges Limbert on

PhD project 1 (Reference: NGCM-0011)

 

Generalised asymptotic numerical methods for buckling instability problems in biological systems and bio-inspired morphing structures

Biotribology Group, nCATS
Faculty of Engineering and the Environment
University of Southampton, United Kingdom

 

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