Related papers: Root growth and force chains in a granular soil
Arabidopsis roots show oscillatory growth patterns on homogeneous agar surfaces, whereas other plants, such as maize, do not. Although several explanations have been proposed, a simple and general model that makes testable predictions…
Naturally-occurring granular materials often consist of angular particles whose shape and frictional characteristics may have important implications on macroscopic flow rheology. In this paper, we provide a theoretical account for the…
In this paper we undertake a multiscale analysis of nutrient uptake by plant root hairs, considering different scale relations between the radius of hairs and the distance between them. We combine the method of formal asymptotic expansions…
A rooted phylogenetic network is a directed acyclic graph with a single root, whose sinks correspond to a set of species. As such networks are useful for representing the evolution of species that have undergone reticulate evolution, there…
Grain boundaries affect properties of polycrystalline materials. The influence of a boundary is largely determined by its energy. Grain boundary energy is often portrayed as a function of macroscopic boundary parameters representing grain…
Transport networks are crucial to the functioning of natural systems and technological infrastructures. For flow networks in many scenarios, such as rivers or blood vessels, acyclic networks (i.e., trees) are optimal structures when…
The scaling properties of the roughness of surfaces grown by two different processes randomly alternating in time, are addressed. The duration of each application of the two primary processes is assumed to be independently drawn from given…
Materials containing a high proportion of grain boundaries offer significant potential for the development of radiation-resistent structural materials. However, a proper understanding of the connection between the radiation-induced…
We investigate the quasi-static mechanical response of soils under cyclic loading using a discrete model of randomly generated convex polygons. This response exhibits a sequence of regimes, each one characterized by a linear accumulation of…
Plant-soil feedback is recognized as a causal mechanism for the emergence of vegetation patterns of the same species especially when water is not a limiting resource (e.g. humid environments). Nevertheless, in the field, plants rarely grow…
The dynamics of grain ejection consecutive to a sphere impacting a granular material is investigated experimentally and the variations of the characteristics of grain ejection with the control parameters are quantitatively studied. The time…
The displacement of a fluid by another less viscous one in a quasi-two dimensional geometry typically leads to complex fingering patterns. In an isotropic system, dense-branching growth arises, which is characterized by repeated…
Most engineered pilings require substantially more force to be driven into the ground than they can resist during extraction. This requires relatively heavy equipment for insertion, which is problematic for anchoring in hard-to-access…
Understanding the causes and effects of spatial vegetation patterns is a fundamental problem in ecology, especially because these can be used as early predictors of catastrophic shifts such as desertification processes. Empirical studies of…
Turgor is the driving force of plant growth, making possible for roots to overcome soil resistance or for stems to counteract gravity. Maintaining a constant growth rate while avoiding the cell content dilution, which would progressively…
Grain boundary roughness can affect electronic and mechanical properties of two-dimensional materials. This roughness depends crucially on the growth process by which the two-dimensional material is formed. To investigate the key mechanisms…
We revisit the problem of the stress distribution in a frictional sandpile under gravity, equipped with a new numerical model of granular assemblies with both normal and tangential (frictional) inter-granular forces. Numerical simulations…
Patches of vegetation consist of dense clusters of shrubs, grass, or trees, often found to be circular characteristic size, defined by the properties of the vegetation and terrain. Therefore, vegetation patches can be interpreted as…
When dense granular systems are exposed to external forcing, they evolve on the time scale that is typically related to the externally imposed one (shear or compression rate, for example). This evolution could be characterized by observing…
Many processes in eukaryotic cells, including cell motility, rely on the growth of branched actin networks from surfaces. Despite its central role the mechano-chemical coupling mechanisms which guide the growth process are poorly…