| Abstract: | Stress relaxation measurements were conducted on stage IVb Phycomycessporangiophores in order to correlate the effect of imposedstress on cell wall growth. It was found that the cell wallshowed maximum growth when subjected to maximum stress. Growthunder stress decreased as the stress decreased. This techniquewas used to measure the response of the sporangiophore to alight stimulus; the response is measured directly from the stressrelaxation curve. Stress/strain measurements were also conducted on the stageIVb Phycomyces sporangiophores in order to further characterizethe mechanical properties of the growing zone. It was foundthat the stress/strain ratio was invariant to the strain ratewithin the ranges tested but the stress/strain ratio did increasewith larger loads, i.e., the stress/strain ratio shows non-linearbehaviour. |
