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Insights from the Plant World: A Fractal Analysis Approach to Tune Mechanical Rigidity of Scaffolding Matrix in Thin Films

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Abstract:

Using a fractal analysis approach to study plant leaf venation and stem sections, we find that plants use very intelligent scaffolding strategies to tune mechanical strength of leaves and stems. Within plant organs, specialized types of tissues with different mechanical properties have evolved. Ideally, the biopolymers cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin present in plant cell walls confer mechanical rigidity to plant tissues, but our studies reveal that the manner these biopolymers are distributed in the tissue matrix hold the key to the mechanical rigidity of the tissues. We have developed an algorithm to determine fractal dimension of the scaffolding matrix and the well-known box counting algorithm to calculate fractal dimensions of leaf venation in high resolution images of reticulate–veined leaves and optical microscope image of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin-stained cross sections of Turbina corymbosa. We found that in leaves with reticulate venation, veins form a scaffolding matrix imparting mechanical rigidity to leaves, and have a fractal dimension close to 1.0 for leaves which have less bending resistance, compared to fractal dimensions close to 1.7 for leaves which have higher bending resistance. Deriving this idea from plants, we use evaporation instability to develop scaffolding matrix with fractal dimensions higher than 1.5 in polymer films. This can form the basis of an efficient strategy to devise thin, stand-alone polymer films with tunable bending stiffness.

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Info:

Periodical:

Advanced Materials Research (Volume 1141)

Pages:

57-64

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.1141.57

Citation:

Cite this paper

Online since:

August 2016

Authors:

Debjani Bagchi*, Avik Dasgupta, Amit D. Gondaliya, Kishore S. Rajput

Keywords:

Biomimetics, Fractal Dimension, Fractals, Leaf, Polymers, Scaling, Self-Similarity, STEM, Thin Films

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* - Corresponding Author

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