MEC3828 Biomedical engineering and healthcare system

This unit provides you with an overview of the application of Mechanical engineering concepts, such as heat and mass transport, fluid dynamics and control theories in the field of biomedical engineering and healthcare. This is conveyed through consideration of various topics in healthcare and medicine, and their comprehension through ordinary and partial differential equations. You will learn to solve these differential equations analytically and numerically using the commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics and Matlab.

The following topics will be the focus of this unit:
1. Heat transfer in a biological system
2. Fluid flow in the circulatory system
3. Mass transport in biological tissue
4. Medical imaging system
5. Physiological modelling
6. Glucose insulin system
7. Cardiopulmonary system
8. Mechanical ventilation system
9. Ethics and biosafety

Topics 1 - 3 cover the application of classical engineering theories to describe biophysical processes of the human body.

Topic 4 introduces students to different medical imaging systems, such as infrared thermography, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound.

Topic 5 introduces the concept of physiological modelling.

This is followed by Topics 6 - 8, where the application of physiological modelling in important human systems are studied.

Finally, Topic 9 provides an overview of the importance of ethics compliance and biosafety in biomedical engineering.