(Department)  Biomedical Engineering         (Division)      Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering
 
 (Level and Major)   Graduate (PhD and master’s)         
 

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Course Title                Heat and Mass transfer in Biological Systems                              
 
Number of Credits       3             Prerequisite Fundamentals of Heat Transfer & Fluid Mechanics

Course Description:
Advanced topics in heat and mass transfer and their application in biological systems
 
Course Goals and Objectives
In this course students will get familiar with advanced topics in heat and mass transfer and their applications in biological systems and also will get involved with the latest research topics in this field in their final project.
 
Course Topics        
The heat and mass transfer syllabus will be followed in parallel.
 
Mass transfer
Introduction to mass transfer
Diffusive mass transfer

• Fick’s first law of diffusion

• Prediction of diffusivity

Conservation of mass in a stationary medium

• Boundary conditions for conservation of mass equation
• Diffusive mass transfer with mass production or first order internal reaction
• Diffusive mass transfer with catalytic surface reaction

One dimensional steady diffusion without mass production or consumption
One dimensional unsteady diffusion without mass production or consumption

• Spatial effects
• Semi-infinite body

Mass transfer in a non-stationary medium
Convective mass transfer

• Mass transfer boundary layer
• Analogy of heat, mass and momentum transfer

Mass transfer in porous media

• Osmotic flow in porous media

 
Heat transfer
Human body as a thermodynamic system

• Energy production in the body or metabolism
• Basal metabolic rate BMR
• Metabolic rate during activities
• Calorimetry
• Work, power and efficiency

Loss of heat from the body

• Radiation heat loss
• Convection heat loss
• Evaporation heat loss
• Heat lost by sweat secretion
• Respiration heat loss
• Conduction heat loss

Heat diffusion equation and boundary conditions
One dimensional steady heat conduction without heat generation
One dimensional unsteady heat conduction without heat generation

• Lumped capacitance
• Spatial effects
• Semi-infinite body

Convective heat transfer
Heat transfer within the body

• Bioheat transfer or Pennes equation
• Influence of blood vessels on heat propagation
• Modified bioheat equations
• Thermal damage to cells and tissue

 
Reading Resources

• A. Datta, “Biological and bioenvironmental Heat and Mass Transfer”, Marcel Dekker.
• S. Becker & A. Kuznetsov, “Transport in Biological Media”, Elsevier.
• S. Becker, “Heat Transfer and fluid flow in biological processes”, Elsevier.
• F. P. Incropera, D. P. DeWitt, “Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer”, John Wiley.
• R. B. Bird, W. E. Stewart, E. N. Lightfoot, “Transport Phenomena; Second Edition”, John Wiley & Sons.
• I. P. Herman, “Physics of the human body”, Springer.
• K. R. Sharma, “Transport Phenomena in Biomedical Engineering”, Mc Graw Hill.

 
Evaluation

• Midterm exam score: 6/20
• Final exam score: 6/20
• Course project score: 8/20