BIEN 191 – Biomechanics Design Laboratory I

Course description: Application of principles of engineering mechanics, data acquisition and basic electronics to the design and utilization of biomechanical instrumentation, as applied to biomechanical systems. Experiments investigate biomechanics primarily of the musculoskeletal system.

Prerequisites:

• Statics (e.g., ENME 010), Solids (e.g., ENME 130), Circuits (e.g., BIEN 100)

Instructor:

• Prof. Jack Winters , Ph.D. jack.winters@mu.edu, 288-6640, Cramer 116C Office Hours: Tu-Th-Fr 9-11, or by appt.

Reading Material:

• BIEN 191 Lecture Notes and Laboratory Manual (available through D2L)
• Supplementary: Any textbooks covering statics, solids, circuits (dynamics covered in BIEN 192).
• Supplementary (in Biomechanics Lab): Medical Instrumentation Application & Design, Webster JG (ed.), Houghton Mifflin, 1992; Basic Orthopaedic Biomechanics, Mow VC, Hayes WC, Raven Pr.; Occupational Biomechanics, Chaffin DB, Anderson GBJ, Martin BJ, John Wiley & Sons, 1999

Desired Outcomes (General):

• an ability to synthesize statics-solids-materials knowledge to solve biomechanical problems
• an ability to implement biomechanics experiments, and effectively analyze, interpret and report data

Grading:

• Exams (October 3 & November 14) 30% (15% each)
• Lab/Design Reports (best 10 of 11) 50% (5% each)
• Final Exam (December 12, 1-3 PM) 20%

Course Outline:

1. Biomechanics Applications of Basic Statics and Solids: review of statics (applied to joints and bones); biomechanical applications of statics; review of solids (axial, shear, bending); applications - Topic 1 Outline
2. Electrical and Mechanical Safety: physiological effects of electric current; shock hazards; methods of protection; electrical safety standards and safety testing procedures; mechanical failure analysis, mechanical facture of safety - Topic 2 Outline
3. Biomedical Transducers and Calibration: classic biomechanical sensors (resistive, inductive, capacitive, conductive, piezoelectric), transducer characterization, calibration, standardization - Topic 3 Outline
4. Biomedical Signal Conditioning: biopotential voltage/frequency response, instrumentation amplifiers, amplifier characteristics, low/high/band pass filters, integrators & differentiators - Topic 4 Outline
5. Mechanical Resonance and Frequency Response: 2 nd-order model for mechanical resonance and frequency response, Fourier series and transform, frequency-based signal processing (especially FFT interpretation) - Topic 5 Outline
6. Data Acquisition and Sampling: analog vs digital signals; anti-aliasing filters; sampling theory/Nyquist criterion; A/D conversion; application to different types of biomechanical signals - Topic 6 Outline
7. Review of Strength of Materials: materials testing; material laws / constitutive equations; principal stress/strain; Mohr’s circle; rosette strain gauges, biomechanical applications (e.g., ski injuries) - Topic 7 Outline
8. Biological Hard Tissues: Materials and Applications: bone and cartilage anatomy and tissue composition; material and structural properties; tissue remodeling, orthopedic applications (arthroplasty, total joint replacement; plating), intro to modeling approaches for load transfer (analytical, finite element)) - Topic 8 Outline
9. Biological Soft Tissues: material composition; material and structural properties of ligament, tendon, skin, blood vessel; viscoelasticity and viscoelastic models applied to cyclic loading, creep, relaxation - Topic 9 Outline
10. Intro to Muscle Mechanics: muscle properties, isolated muscle input-output behavior, Hill muscle model structure and constitutive relation properties, muscle as biological actuator across joints, muscle remodeling - Topic 10 Outline

Course Policy:

• Students are responsible for downloading and reading the laboratory exercises and related materials from our D2L site prior to lab; students are also responsible for downloading lecture materials.
• Laboratory reports are due by 5 PM of the lab period of the subsequent week. Late lab reports will be penalized 10% per academic weekday. Late reports should be time-stamped (e.g., by Engineering Office) - otherwise the date will be that when the TA picks up the report.
• Plagiarism will not be tolerated, as per University policy (see Undergraduate Bulletin).
• While data may be collected in groups, each report must represent individual work unless it is a group report. For group reports, 10% of grade is allocated for peer evaluation of performance.
• Unless stipulated otherwise, report grading is distributed as follows: Abstract (10%), Intro/Background (10%), Methods (15%), Results (30%), Discussion (30%), Conclusion (5%).
• Students turning in a report for a lab session they missed will receive a “0” for the “results” section.
• The lowest lab grade for the semester will be dropped (two-week labs count as two labs with same score).
• Grading disputes should be directed to the TAs.
• Exams will consist of two parts: 10-15 short-answer problems and 2-3 multi-part problems.