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SUMMARY: Inversion and perversion in biomechanics: from microscopic anisot
 ropy to macroscopic chirality - Professor Alain Goriely\, OCCAM\, Mathemat
 ical Institute\, University of Oxford
DTSTART:20131115T143000Z
DTEND:20131115T160000Z
UID:TALK46794@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ms Helen Gardner
DESCRIPTION:One of the fundamental problems of bio-mechanics is to underst
 and the relationship between a microscopic structure and its overall macro
 scopic responses. A paradigm for this problem is chirality. How does a rig
 ht-handed structure behaves under loads? A simple example motivated by the
  study of DNA is  the extension of a right-handed spring under pure axial 
 load. Would it rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise? Similarly\, many pla
 nt structures are fibre-reinforced and the problem is to connect the chira
 lity of the fibre with the chirality of the rotation induced by change in 
 pressure.  Motivated by different biological experiments on active gels\, 
 DNA\, plant cell walls\, and fungi\, I will show that biological systems\,
  through a combination of internal stresses and  nonlinear response offer 
 many puzzling and often counter-intuitive chiral behaviour leading to the 
 interesting possibility of perversion\, an inversion in chirality. These b
 ehaviours also illustrate non-monotonic behaviour in loading a response th
 at can only be found in nonlinear mechanical systems.
LOCATION:Department of Engineering - LR4
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