BMEN20001: Biomechanical Physics and Computation

5% - Assignment 1
10% - Assignment 2
10% - Assignment 3
15% - Assignment 4, groups of 4

10% - Mid-semester test
50% - 3h exam in exam period

The rest of this review is pretty long. I've included a lot of detail about the topics we covered, the class experience, and the assessments. I hope it aids people in their decisions about this subject, and helps people taking it / required to take it know what kind of experience to expect. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any further questions about this subject.

Yep

The content lectures were presented by Vijay Rajagopal.

Additionally, there was a guest lecture from one of the tutors, a series of three guest lectures on head injury by Andrew Short, and a series of three further guest lectures from various biomechanics researchers.

There were no past exams available because all of the previous exam questions had been included as tutorial questions (only one previous exam this time round).

3/5

This subject served as an (admittedly poor) introduction to programming using MATLAB. Learning MATLAB was the focus of most of the workshops, and the first three assignments were mostly programming.

There were four recommended textbooks, from which the course material was drawn. These were:
- Humphrey JD, and Delange SL, An Introduction to Biomechanics
- Nihat O. Nordin M, Goldsheyder D, and Leger D, Fundamentals of Biomechanics, 3rd Edition
- Meriam Jl and Kraige LG, Engineering Mechanics: Dynamics, 7th Edition
- Hibbeler RC, Statics and Mechanics of Materials, 3rd Edition

I personally used a very old edition of Hibbeler (like 1991 or something, I think it's technically not even the same book as it was just called 'Mechanics of Materials') and I found it absolutely fantastic, but that's coming from a strong maths and physics background and with a preference for comprehensive textbooks that leave no ambiguity and don't shy away from complexity. It was also a regular engineering text, with no biomechanical context. Nevertheless, it was an enlightening read; one of those textbooks that answers all of your questions as soon as they form, and also really gives you a big-picture view of the material.

Some of the other texts might serve as a better introduction to these physics concepts, but they seemed to also assume a bit of a background in biology, of which I had none. Therefore, I recommend the Hibbeler option for anyone with my background.

Three 1h lectures (less on average, however; see comments!)
One 2h workshop (sometimes a tutorial, sometimes a MATLAB class)

2016 Semester 1

95