{"id":3780,"date":"2013-02-14T20:07:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thales.mit.edu\/bush\/?p=3780"},"modified":"2021-04-15T00:49:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T00:49:39","slug":"optimal-concentrations-in-transport-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thales.mit.edu\/bush\/index.php\/2013\/02\/14\/optimal-concentrations-in-transport-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimizing natural transport systems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover alignwide has-subtle-background-color has-background-dim\"><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-cover-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"218\" height=\"220\" src=\"http:\/\/thales.mit.edu\/bush\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/transport.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6671\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"tw-text-wide has-extra-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Many biological and man-made systems rely on transport systems for the&nbsp;distribution of material, for example matter and energy. Material transfer&nbsp;in these systems is determined by the flow rate and the concentration of&nbsp;material. While the most concentrated solutions offer the greatest potential&nbsp;in terms of material transfer, impedance typically increases with concentration,&nbsp;thus making them the most difficult to transport. We develop a&nbsp;general framework for describing systems for which impedance increases&nbsp;with concentration, and consider material flow in four different natural systems:&nbsp;blood flow in vertebrates, sugar transport in vascular plants and two&nbsp;modes of nectar drinking in birds and insects. The model provides a simple&nbsp;method for determining the optimum concentration in these systems.&nbsp;Comparing the&nbsp;model predictions with experimental data from more than 100 animal and&nbsp;plant species, we find that the simple model rationalizes the observed concentrations&nbsp;and impedances. The model provides a universal framework&nbsp;for studying flows impeded by concentration, and yields insight into&nbsp;optimization in engineered systems, such as traffic flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"tw-text-wide has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">See paper: &nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/math.mit.edu\/~bush\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Jensen_Kim_Holbrook_Bush_RSIF_2013.pdf\">Jensen, Kim, Holbrook and Bush (2013)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Optimizing natural transport systems - John W. M. Bush<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thales.mit.edu\/bush\/index.php\/2013\/02\/14\/optimal-concentrations-in-transport-systems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Optimizing natural transport systems - John W. M. Bush\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thales.mit.edu\/bush\/index.php\/2013\/02\/14\/optimal-concentrations-in-transport-systems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John W. M. 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