Poroelastic plant-inspired structures & materials to sense, regulate flow, and move

Area of Science:

• Multiscale physics
• Plant biomechanics
• Soft robotics

Background:

• Plants exhibit complex sensing, flow regulation, and motion capabilities despite lacking nervous systems and muscles.
• These abilities arise from intricate multi-scale couplings across biology, chemistry, and physics.
• Decomposing plant responses into independently modelable blocks offers a holistic understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent strategies for designing plant-inspired soft devices.
• To explore the application of poroelastic principles in these devices for sensing, flow manipulation, and motion generation.
• To examine plant mechanisms at organism, microscopic, and nanoscopic scales.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of poroelasticity in plants at the organism scale for information transfer.
• Investigation of passive flow regulation via micro-scale valves with geometric non-linearities.
• Examination of nano-scale fiber orientation in plant tissues for water-induced motion.

Main Results:

• Poroelasticity enables plants to convey information akin to a nervous system.
• Microscopic valves with non-linear geometry facilitate passive flow regulation.
• Nano-scale fiber orientation in plant tissues drives motion using water.

Conclusions:

• Plant-inspired soft devices can leverage poroelasticity for sensing, flow control, and actuation.
• Understanding multi-scale plant mechanisms provides a blueprint for novel bio-inspired engineering.
• Poroelastic principles offer a unified framework for deciphering and replicating plant functions.