In-situ visualisation of the micromechanical deformation of apple tissue using 4D X-ray computed tomography with digital volume correlation.

Abstract

Continuous X-ray computed tomography (XCT) combined with digital volume correlation (DVC) is presented to quantify internal three-dimensional strain and failure dynamics in apple cortex tissue during compression, revealing how the cellular microstructure governs its mechanical response. We introduce a dimensionless number Mi that is a function of the average interfacial contact area of cells, cell wall thickness, the average cell volume and tissue porosity, to describe tissue microstructure over different development stages. Mechanical softening during maturation aligned strongly with decreasing Mi, linking microstructure to effective Young's modulus, peak stress, and toughness. DVC revealed distinctive strain-distribution signatures: in young, low-porosity tissue, strain was initially diffuse with early-onset localization indicating progressive failure, whereas mature, high-porosity tissue exhibited sharply peaked strain distributions and highly localized fracture planes indicative of brittle collapse. These findings demonstrate how pore evolution, anisotropy, and cell packing jointly determine macroscopic deformation, establishing XCT-DVC as a powerful framework for connecting plant tissue architecture to mechanical function.

Plant phenotyping relevance

4D XCTとDVCを用いてリンゴ組織の内部三次元ひずみ、微細構造、破壊状態を定量化する手法が研究の中心であり、植物組織の構造・力学的状態を抽出しているため。

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