TY - JOUR A1 - Sanabria, S. J. A1 - Baensch, Franziska A1 - Zauner, M. A1 - Niemz, P. T1 - In‑situ quantification of microscopic contributions of individual cells to macroscopic wood deformation with synchrotron computed tomography N2 - Wood-based composites hold the promise of sustainable construction. Understanding the influence on wood cellular microstructure in the macroscopic mechanical behavior is key for engineering highperformance composites. In this work, we report a novel Individual Cell Tracking (ICT) approach for in-situ quantification of nanometer-scale deformations of individual wood cells during mechanical loading of macroscopic millimeter-scale wood samples. Softwood samples containing > 104 cells were subjected to controlled radial tensile and longitudinal compressive load in a synchrotron radiation micro-computed tomography (SRμCT) setup. Tracheid and wood ray cells were automatically segmented, and their geometric variations were tracked during load. Finally, interactions between microstructure deformations (lumen geometry, cell wall thickness), cellular arrangement (annual growth rings, anisotropy, wood ray presence) with the macroscopic deformation response were investigated. The results provide cellular insight into macroscopic relations, such as anisotropic Poisson effects, and allow direct observation of previously suspected wood ray reinforcing effects. The method is also appropriate for investigation of non-linear deformation effects, such as buckling and deformation recovery after failure, and gives insight into less studied aspects, such as changes in lumen diameter and cell wall thickness during uniaxial load. ICT provides an experimental tool for direct validation of hierarchical mechanical models on real biological composites. KW - Wood materials KW - Micro-comuted tomography (µCT) KW - Individual cell tracking KW - Stress-strain behaviour PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-518157 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Springer nature AN - OPUS4-51815 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -