8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

Tue 611:23-14:00P10.23Effect of boundary configuration on pressure instabilityin cytoplasmic streaming of giant plant cellsKazuhiko Mitsuhashi, 1 Ryusuke Fujinaga, 1 and Ryunosuke Nakagawa 11 Sasebo National College of Technology, 1-1 Okishin, Sasebo 857-1193, Nagasaki,JapanNumerical model of cytoplasmic streaming in giant plant cell was studied by using MPS (MovingParticle Semi-implicit) method. The cytoplasm was modeled as two-dimensional fluid with simpleviscosity and weak elasticity. The fluid consisted of many particles from 1,000 to 10,000, andsome kinds of regular polygons and circle were adopted for boundary wall. The velocity vector andpressure were calculated for each particle in several seconds while driving force was applied on theparticles close to the wall. The result showed that the velocity vector changed disorderly near thecorner of the polygonal wall. In addition, the pressure became instable and heterogeneous as thenumber of the corner increases. This instability was also found for circular wall but independent ofthe particle number. Stable and homogeneous streaming was seen only if the wall has long straightsides like rectangular. These results suggest that the boundary configuration is important for stableand homogeneous streaming in giant plant cell.23