About this Simulator
This interactive tool provides a high-fidelity 2D visualization of the mechanical breakdown of food in the stomach, based on the advanced computational models from the paper "Deformation, mechanical breakdown, and flow of soft solid foods in the stomach". It aims to make the complex biomechanics of digestion intuitive and explorable.
Key Features to Observe:
- Force Dynamics: Toggle the force vectors to see how fluid drag (blue) and wall compression (red) act on food particles. This is the primary driver of breakdown.
- Internal Stress: The heatmap inside the food shows stress accumulation. Watch how stress concentrates before a particle deforms or fractures.
- Event Timeline: Follow the annotations that appear in sync with the simulation to understand the significance of each physiological event, from gentle mixing to the violent Terminal Antral Contraction (TAC).
- Interactive Inspection: Click on any food particle to pause and inspect its properties, connecting the visual behavior to underlying data.