A mechanics model for the compression of plant and vegetative tissues

A three-dimensional (3-D) meshfree-based computational model to investigate stress-strain-time relationships of plant cells during drying

A better understanding of plant cell micromechanics would enhance the current opinion on “how things are happening” inside a plant cell, enabling more detailed insights into plant physiology as well as processing plant biomaterials. However, with the contemporary laboratory equipment, the experimental investigation of cell micromechanics has been a challenging task due to diminutive spatial and time scales involved. In this investigation, a three-dimensional (3-D) coupled Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and Coarse-Grained (CG) computational approach has been employed to model micromechanics of single plant cells going through drying or dehydration. This meshfree-based computational model has conclusively demonstrated that it can effectively simulate the behaviour of stress and strain in a plant cell being compressed at different levels of dryness: ranging from a fresh state to an extremely dried state. In addition, different biological and physical circumstances have been approximated through the proposed novel computational framework in the form of different turgor pressures, strain rates, mechanical properties and cell sizes. The proposed computational framework has potential not only to study the micromechanical characteristics of plant cellular structure during drying, but also other equivalent, biological structures and processes with relevant modifications. There are no underlying difficulties in adopting the model to replicate other types of cells and more sophisticated micromechanical phenomena of the cells under different external loading conditions.

Hyperelastic models for hydration of cellular tissue

In this paper we present hyperelastic models for swelling elastic shells, due to pressurization of the internal cavity. These shells serve as model systems for cells having cell walls, as can be found in bacteria, plants and fungi. The pressurized internal cavity represents the cell vacuole with intact membrane at a certain turgor pressure, and the elastic shell represents the hydrated cell wall. At pressurization the elastic shell undergoes inhomogeneous deformation. Its deformation is governed by a strain energy function. Using the scaling law of Cloizeaux for the osmotic pressure, we obtain approximate analytical expressions of the cell volume versus turgor pressure - which are quite comparable to numerical solutions of the problem. Subsequently, we have simulated the swelling of shells - where the cell wall material is embedded with microfibrils, leading to strain hardening and anisotropic cell expansion. The purpose of our investigations is to elucidate the contribution of cell membrane integrity and turgor to the water holding capacity (hydration) of plant foods. We conclude with a discussion of the impact of this work on the hydration of food material, and other fields like plant science and the soft matter physics of responsive gels.

A particle based model to simulate microscale morphological changes of plant tissues during drying

Fundamental understanding on microscopic physical changes of plant materials is vital to optimize product quality and processing techniques, particularly in food engineering. Although grid-based numerical modelling can assist in this regard, it becomes quite challenging to overcome the inherited complexities of these biological materials especially when such materials undergo critical processing conditions such as drying, where the cellular structure undergoes extreme deformations. In this context, a meshfree particle based model was developed which is fundamentally capable of handling extreme deformations of plant tissues during drying. The model is built by coupling a particle based meshfree technique: Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and a Discrete Element Method (DEM). Plant cells were initiated as hexagons and aggregated to form a tissue which also accounts for the characteristics of the middle lamella. In each cell, SPH was used to model cell protoplasm and DEM was used to model the cell wall. Drying was incorporated by varying the moisture content, the turgor pressure, and cell wall contraction effects. Compared to the state of the art grid-based microscale plant tissue drying models, the proposed model can be used to simulate tissues under excessive moisture content reductions incorporating cell wall wrinkling. Also, compared to the state of the art SPH-DEM tissue models, the proposed model better replicates real tissues and the cell-cell interactions used ensure efficient computations. Model predictions showed good agreement both qualitatively and quantitatively with experimental findings on dried plant tissues. The proposed modelling approach is fundamentally flexible to study different cellular structures for their microscale morphological changes at dehydration.

Particle-based model to simulate the micromechanics of biological cells

This paper is concerned with addressing how biological cells react to mechanical impulse. We propose a particle based model to numerically study the mechanical response of these cells with subcellular detail. The model focuses on a plant cell in which two important features are present: (1) the cell's interior liquidlike phase inducing hydrodynamic phenomena, and (2) the cell wall, a viscoelastic solid membrane that encloses the protoplast. In this particle modeling framework, the cell fluid is modeled by a standard smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. For the viscoelastic solid phase (cell wall), a discrete element method (DEM) is proposed. The cell wall hydraulic conductivity (permeability) is built in through a constitutive relation in the SPH formulation. Simulations show that the SPH-DEM model is in reasonable agreement with compression experiments on an in vitro cell and with analytical models for the basic dynamical modes of a spherical liquid filled shell. We have performed simulations to explore more complex situations such as relaxation and impact, thereby considering two cell types: a stiff plant type and a soft animal-like type. Their particular behavior (force transmission) as a function of protoplasm and cell wall viscosity is discussed. We also show that the mechanics during and after cell failure can be modeled adequately. This methodology has large flexibility and opens possibilities to quantify problems dealing with the response of biological cells to mechanical impulses, e.g., impact, and the prediction of damage on a (sub)cellular scale.