ODE and PDE based modeling of biological transportation networks
Provides theoretical foundations for models of biological network formation, but the results are incremental and domain-specific.
The authors prove global existence of solutions for a discrete ODE model of biological transportation networks and derive a macroscopic PDE model as its continuum limit, with numerical simulations showing convergence to non-unique steady states.
We study the global existence of solutions of a discrete (ODE based) model on a graph describing the formation of biological transportation networks, introduced by Hu and Cai. We propose an adaptation of this model so that a macroscopic (PDE based) system can be obtained as its formal continuum limit. We prove the global existence of weak solutions of the macroscopic PDE model. Finally, we present results of numerical simulations of the discrete model, illustrating the convergence to steady states, their non-uniqueness as well as their dependence on initial data and model parameters.