%0 Journal Article
%T Simulating Growth Kinetics in a Data-Parallel 3D Lattice Photobioreactor
%A A. V. Husselmann
%A K. A. Hawick
%J Modelling and Simulation in Engineering
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/153241
%X Though there have been many attempts to address growth kinetics in algal photobioreactors, surprisingly little have attempted an agent-based modelling (ABM) approach. ABM has been heralded as a method of practical scientific inquiry into systems of a complex nature and has been applied liberally in a range of disciplines including ecology, physics, social science, and microbiology with special emphasis on pathogenic bacterial growth. We bring together agent-based simulation with the Photosynthetic Factory (PSF) model, as well as certain key bioreactor characteristics in a visual 3D, parallel computing fashion. Despite being at small scale, the simulation gives excellent visual cues on the dynamics of such a reactor, and we further investigate the model in a variety of ways. Our parallel implementation on graphical processing units of the simulation provides key advantages, which we also briefly discuss. We also provide some performance data, along with particular effort in visualisation, using volumetric and isosurface rendering. 1. Introduction The motivation for optimising growth kinetics in phytoplankton, specifically algae, is rooted in their use for a variety of purposes including dietary supplements such as spirulina [1], and Astaxanthin [2]. Astaxanthin in particular, is a valuable carotenoid often used for pigmentation in salmon and trout, as well as for human consumption, due to its antioxidant qualities [3]. The mass cultivation of algae is not only done for extracting dietary supplements. It is also performed for other tasks such as effluent treatment [4] and biodiesel production (though this is still in infancy) [5]. Previous agent-based algal growth models typically assume a 1-dimensional lattice [6, 7]. Our work focuses on a 2-dimensional lattice in an attempt to better model the local interactions of hydrodynamics in order to more accurately determine illumination history. Illumination history is important to the cell division rates in a culture [8¨C10], and factors such as fluid dynamics determine the effects of mutual shading between cells, as well as their exposure (or overexposure) to the illumination source (in our work, we assume a parallel light source from either side of the lattice). In our simulation, this combination of photolimitation, photoinhibition, and mutual shading determines the illumination history of a cell. We attempt to capture these factors with some accuracy in counting the state transitions between specific states in the PSF model. In our previous work [11, 12], we have considered preliminary modelling of
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/mse/2013/153241/