TY - JOUR
T1 - Minimizing hydraulic resistance of a plant root by shape optimization
AU - Chandrashekar, Sriram
AU - Chen, Kangping
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation (CBET 0932968) and the Donors of the Petroleum Research Fund , administered by the American Chemical Society (52177-ND9).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/7/1
Y1 - 2016/7/1
N2 - Optimum plant root structure that minimizes a single root's hydraulic resistance to water-uptake is studied in this paper with the constraint of constant root volume. Hydraulic resistances under the slender body approximation and without such a limitation are considered. It is found that for large stele-to-cortex permeability ratio, there exists an optimum root length-to-base-radius ratio that minimizes the hydraulic resistance. A remarkable feature of the optimum root structure is that the optimum dimensionless stele conductivity depends only on a single geometrical parameter, the stele-to-root base-radius ratio. Once the stele-to-root base-radius ratio and the stele-to-cortex permeability ratio are given, the optimum root length-to-radius ratio can be found. While these findings remain to be verified by experiments for real plant roots, they offer theoretical guidance for the design of bio-inspired structures that minimize the hydraulic resistance for fluid production from porous media.
AB - Optimum plant root structure that minimizes a single root's hydraulic resistance to water-uptake is studied in this paper with the constraint of constant root volume. Hydraulic resistances under the slender body approximation and without such a limitation are considered. It is found that for large stele-to-cortex permeability ratio, there exists an optimum root length-to-base-radius ratio that minimizes the hydraulic resistance. A remarkable feature of the optimum root structure is that the optimum dimensionless stele conductivity depends only on a single geometrical parameter, the stele-to-root base-radius ratio. Once the stele-to-root base-radius ratio and the stele-to-cortex permeability ratio are given, the optimum root length-to-radius ratio can be found. While these findings remain to be verified by experiments for real plant roots, they offer theoretical guidance for the design of bio-inspired structures that minimize the hydraulic resistance for fluid production from porous media.
KW - Hydraulic resistance
KW - Optimum root structure
KW - Porous media flow
KW - Root water uptake
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U2 - 10.1016/j.mechrescom.2016.05.012
DO - 10.1016/j.mechrescom.2016.05.012
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84973442738
SN - 0093-6413
VL - 75
SP - 44
EP - 48
JO - Mechanics Research Communications
JF - Mechanics Research Communications
ER -