Corn is the world's leading grain crop. In the U.S. alone, more than 250 billion tons are harvested annually, generating twice as much revenue as any other crop. Corn is deeply rooted in our economy, being used in over 42,000 different applications, including the production of consumer goods, foods, pharmaceuticals, livestock feed, and fuel. The demand for corn continues to rise each year, fueling efforts to increase production. Unfortunately, 10-20 percent of the corn crop is lost every year due to breakage of the stalk before harvest, typically due to wind-induced stalk failure. These losses significantly reduce productivity of farms, negatively impact individual farmers, and decrease national production, thus affecting the cost of consumer goods, commodities trading, fuel, food, and the broader economy. Because so much corn is grown annually, even a relative small improvement in corn stalk strength could have a dramatically positive affect on total production and farm productivity. While biologists have worked for many years to address this problem, this Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) award supports a new approach: involving structural engineers working closely with industrial biologists. The combination of engineering with biology will support the development of stronger varieties of corn, and provide additional insights into crops, including the development of strategies and approaches for similarly strengthening other crops. The project will also expose undergraduate students to a meaningful and interdisciplinary research experience.
This project will address corn stalk failure using engineering failure analysis techniques. First, in-field observations of natural failures will be performed to describe the nature of stalk failure, both qualitatively (physical description and appearance), and quantitatively (location and orientation). Properly describing and quantifying the types and distributions of failure patterns will allow subsequent research to focus on regions of weakness hypothesized to reside near stalk nodes. Laboratory tests will then be performed in order to collect additional geometric and strength data in a controlled environment using several types of corn stalks. Following these test, measurement of corn stalk tissues will be performed to assess stiffness, strength, and chemical composition. Finally, these various aspects will be combined to perform statistical analyses, and to create engineering models of corn stalk behavior. The overarching goal of this project is to identify aspects of the corn stalk which are associated with failure, seeking candidate features which could be modified to produce stronger stalks. This study constitutes the first engineering failure analysis of corn stalks, and will provide a wealth of valuable information regarding the structural characteristics of this important crop, thus supporting and contributing to efforts to develop stronger varieties of corn.
