Title：Plant leaves as impact absorber

Time：Mar. 5, 2023 18:00-19:00

Location:Tencent meeting161-645-24

Speaker：Wilfried Konrad， University of Tubingen

Host：Guoyong Wang

Abstract：

The impact of raindrops is a process to which natural surfaces are commonly exposed. The process of drop impact is complex, and its outcome depends on many influential factors, such as wettability of plants, leaf inclination angle and the ability of leaves to respond elastically to drop impact. Different elastic motions are initiated by drop impact, and these elastic responses which occur on different time scales can affect drop impact directly or indirectly by changing the leaf inclination. An important feature of drop impact is splashing, meaning the fragmentation of the drop with ejection of satellite droplets. This process is promoted by the kinetic energy of the drop and leaf traits. Basic drop impact patterns are presented and discussed for a number of different leaf types, as well as some exemplary mosses.

Introduction to the speaker：

Dr. Wilfried Konrad is a senior researcher at the University of Tubingen. His research fields cover bionics, functional morphology, benthos paleontology, and paleoclimatology. He participates in many research projects and achieves outstanding results. Among them, a new textile for water transfer was developed based on bionic analysis of evaporation and condensation in different moss species in cooperation with Dundoff Institute for Textiles and Fibres (DITF) in Germany. A technology has been developed to identify persistent air layers based on the surface of an organism immersed in a liquid phase; Based on a new 3D nanostructured filter medium, a highly efficient coalestizer (3D bio-filter) was developed, which won the TECHTEXTIL Innovation Award in July 2011. Furthermore, he designed a model of water recovery and conservation based on the water balance principle of the Brazilian pineapple flower, etc. At the same time, according to the research results, Konrad has applied for many patents and published more than 50 papers, which have been widely recognized in the related field.