Mechanics in Leaf Venation Morphogenesis and their Biomimetic Inspiration to Construct a 2-Dimensional Reinforcement Layout Model

摘要

This paper concerns biomimetic exploration of the leaf rib layout problem. Biological venation of organisms is observed to be similar to reinforced plate/shell systems. Similarity analysis makes it clear that dicotyledonous leaves are an ideal research subject. In this paper, global and local regularities are summarized and existing theories on venation morphogenesis are discussed and compared. An energy hypothesis is proposed to cater for interdisciplinary applications. A venation growing model wasthen used to construct a two-dimensional reinforcement layout model. The biomechanical expressions developed can be an alternative to describe rib-in-plate or fibre-in-composite materials.