Henderson Masthead
Courses

Spring 2010

Biomechanics, BEN 465/665

Course Description: This is a 3 credit undergraduate (465) or graduate (665) classroom-based course that meets three times per week and includes a combination of group and individual work, discussions, and lectures. The topic, musculoskeletal biomechanics, is useful to many fields, including biomedical engineering, medicine, developmental biology, and biophysics. Practical applications of biomechanics include tissue engineering, movement analysis for both physical therapy and the training of elite athletes, biomedical implant design and testing, vehicle safety testing, and the development of technologies for computer-assisted surgery. Basic research using biomechanical engineering approaches can improve fundamental understanding of living systems at scales ranging from molecules, to cells, to whole organisms.

Course Goals: In this course students will gain working knowledge of the functions and mechanical properties of musculoskeletal cells and tissues, how those cells and tissues combine to form structures, the properties and behavior of those structures, and techniques used to analyze the structures as well as their individual components.