A fluid dynamics multidimensional model of biofilm growth: stability, influence of environment and sensitivity

TL;DR

This paper extends a fluid dynamics model of cyanobacteria biofilm growth by analyzing stability, incorporating environmental factors like light and temperature, and performing sensitivity analyses to validate and simulate biofilm development.

Contribution

It introduces environmental influences into the existing biofilm model and conducts sensitivity and robustness analyses to validate the model's predictions.

Findings

Model stability analyzed and confirmed.

Environmental factors significantly affect biofilm growth.

Numerical simulations demonstrate model behavior in 2D and 3D.

Abstract

In this article, we study in details the fluid dynamics system proposed in Clarelli et al (2013) to model the formation of cyanobacteria biofilms. After analyzing the linear stability of the unique non trivial equilibrium of the system, we introduce in the model the influence of light and temperature, which are two important factors for the development of cyanobacteria biofilm. Since the values of the coefficients we use for our simulations are estimated through information found in the literature, some sensitivity and robustness analyses on these parameters are performed. All these elements enable us to control and to validate the model we have already derived and to present some numerical simulations in the 2D and the 3D cases.