Bioengineering Specialty


What is Bioengineering?
Students in MECH-350

Bioengineering is the study of the relationship between living organisms and machinery and the use of artificial tissues, organs, or organ components to replace parts of the body that are damaged, lost or malfunctioning.

Biological engineering (also biosystems engineering and bioengineering) is a broad-based engineering discipline that deals with bio-molecular and molecular processes, product design, sustainability and analysis of biological systems. Generally, bioengineering encompasses other engineering disciplines when they are applied to living organisms (e.g. prosthetics in mechanical engineering).

Bioengineering Courses

Listed below are the course requirements for completing a concentration in Bioengineering for Mechanical Engineering students.

Required courses:

  • MECH-350 - Introduction to Bioengineering Applications
  • MECH-554 - Bioengineering Applications Project

Elective Courses (Choose 3):

  • BIOL-141/142 - General Biology Lecture/Lab
  • BIOL-241/242 - Human Biology Lecture/Lab
  • BIOL-341 - Anatomy and Physiology
  • MECH-550 - Automotive Bioengineering: Occupant Protection and Safety
  • MECH-551 - Vehicle Collision Dynamics: Analysis and Reconstruction

View the Bioengineering faculty page.

What are the objectives of the Bioengineering Applications Specialty?

The Bioengineering Applications Specialty addresses some of the unique engineering challenges found in biomedical equipment manufacturing and crash safety. The basic philosophy is twofold:

First - to deepen the knowledge base of the Mechanical Engineering students in the following areas:

  • Materials - Metals, Polymers
  • Design - Machine Design, Computer-Aided Design, Finite Element Analysis
  • Manufacturing - Design for Manufacturing

Second – to provide the students with a basic knowledge of medical applications of engineering, automotive bioengineering (crash safety), and medical product design.

Student Project VideoThis specialty is designed to give the students an introduction to the field of Medical Engineering without jeopardizing the fundamentals of the ME discipline. Students with this specialty graduates as Mechanical Engineers. At the same time, the combination of this specialty and the student's extensive co-op exposure at a biomedical firm will give them strong qualifications for a biomedical-related career.

The "Introduction to Bioengineering Applications" course explores the mechanics of various medical equipment and devices whose proper design would require both knowledge of engineering and physiology. This course provides the students with the basic terms and concepts of medical engineering. Students may than select three courses from a list of five, two of which are related to Crash Safety with the balance in the area of Biology and Anatomy/Physiology.

The projects for the final Bioengineering course in capstone design are collected from medical and biomedical companies and presented to the student teams for analysis and design. The students' documented work is available to the participating companies.

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