3-D spatio-temporal structures of biofilms in a water channel

We develop a numerical predictive tool for multiphase fluid mixtures consisting of biofilms grown in a viscous fluid matrix by implementing a second-order finite difference discretization of the multiphase biofilm model developed recently on a general purpose graphic processing unit. With this numerical tool, we study a 3-D biomass-flow interaction resulting in biomass growth, structure formation, deformation, and detachment phenomena in biofilms grown in a water channel in quiescent state and subject to a shear flow condition, respectively. The numerical investigation is limited in the viscous regime of the biofilm-solvent mixture. In quiescent flows, the model predicts growth patterns consistent with experimental findings for single or multiple adjacent biofilm colonies, the so-called mushroom shape growth pattern. The simulated biomass growth both in density and thickness matches very well with the experimentally grown biofilm in a water channel. When shear is imposed at a boundary, our numerical studies reproduce wavy patterns, pinching, and streaming phenomena observed in biofilms grown in a water channel. Copyright (C) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.