Modeling Soil-Root Interactions: Virtual Elements for 3D-1D Coupling
Please login to view abstract download link
The presentation highlights soil-root interaction simulations leveraging an optimization-based strategy for coupling 3D and 1D problems. This strategy has been extended in this novel work to address the nonlinear complexities inherent in soil-root interactions. The use of the Virtual Element Method (VEM), in the 3D domain facilitates efficient handling of complex geometries, such as the presence of stones, barriers, or layered soil structures, enhancing the method's versatility in real-world scenarios. A discrete-hybrid tip-tracking approach is employed to dynamically simulate root growth. By incorporating biologically inspired branching rules, the model generates realistic root-network configurations that closely mimic the roots natural growth patterns. The presentation includes numerical examples to validate the proposed method, starting with simplified test cases to demonstrate the method's accuracy in capturing the coupled dynamics of the soil-root system. Additionally, a more complex simulation shows the capability of the method to handle realistic geometrical features and nonlinear interactions effectively.