[Seminar] Entropy and active elasticity by Dr. Dhrubaditya Mitra

The traditional field of continuum mechanics, which contains both elasticity and fluid mechanics is going through a resurgance due to possible applications to biology. Biological systems bring in two novel aspects : (a) biological samples are complex -- often they cannot be clearly demarcated into solid and fluid. They may be viscoelastic. (b) biological samples are living. This second aspect is the most important one. The fundamental aspect of a living systems is that they are out of equilibrium -- they generate entropy. This poses the question : how do the equations of elasticity and fluid mechanics must change to take into account the fundamental non-equilibrium nature of these systems. Within this broad framework, I will present two problems. One, how to estimate the entropy generation rate, which is a measure of activity, of living systems. Two, how the buckling of shells, a traditional non-linear problem in elasticity, change if the shells are made active.

 

 Refs:

 *  Active buckling of pressurized spherical shells: Monte Carlo Simulation

 V Agrawal, V Pandey, and D Mitra  arXiv:2206.14172

 

 * Estimate of entropy generation rate can spatiotemporally resolve the active nature of cell flickering

 SK Manikandan, T Ghosh, T Mandal, A Biswas, B Sinha, and D Mitra ( arXiv:2205.12849 )