Biomechanics

ABOUT THE COURSE: This course introduces Biomechanics to students from all backgrounds in engineering. The course builds a foundation in mechanics, introduces biological terminology and builds on this foundation to introduce static analysis, postural analysis and gait analysis. Further, this course discusses mechanics of biomaterials – both hard and soft tissues. Advanced concepts like Visco-elastic properties of soft tissues are also discussed. The course uses a novel pedagogical approach, the learner centric MOOC (LCM) approach INTENDED AUDIENCE: B.E./B.Tech (Biomedical Engg) students, M.E./M.Tech (Biomedical Engg) students, MS/Ph.D. (Biomedical Engg) students PREREQUISITES: High school physics & mathematics. Kindly note that this course does NOT assume knowledge of Engg Mechanics and Strength of Materials.

Week 1: Introductory Mechanics – Statics and Dynamics – Basic Principles. Week 2:The human body as a biomechanical system – basic terminologies Week 3:Kinematics of muscles and joints - free-body diagrams and equilibrium, forces and stresses in joints Week 4:Biomechanical analysis of joints of upper limb - Shoulder, Elbow, wrist, hand and fingers Week 5:Upper limb as a mechanical system – analysis of reaching as movement of a multi-link serial chain – forward kinematics, analysis of fingertip forces as a parallel manipulator Week 6:Biomechanical analysis of joints – Spine, Hip, Knee, Ankle. Week 7:Introduction to Postural stability and Gait analysis. Week 8:Gait analysis in health and disease - basics. Week 9:Mechanics of Hard Tissues - Definition of Stress and Strain, Deformation Mechanics, structure and mechanical properties of bone - cortical and cancellous bones, Wolff’s law of bone remodeling; Week 10:Soft Tissues - Structure, functions, material properties – tendon function, elasticity in a tendon, models of non-linear elasticity in a tendon – physiological and non-physiological regimes, Davis’ law of soft tissue remodeling. Week 11:Visco-elastic properties of soft tissues, Models of visco-elasticity: Maxwell & Voight models. Week 12:Basic Biofluid mechanics - Flow properties of blood in the intact human cardiovascular system.