Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics
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A collaboration between School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics to form the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics.
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Browsing Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics by Content Type "Conference proceeding"
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- 2023 Engineering Mechanics Research Symposium(Virginia Tech, 2023-03)The annual Engineering Mechanics Spring Symposium featured lecture and poster presentations from both students and faculty members.
- Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic and Response on Student Performance in Large Foundational Mechanics CoursesLord, James; Thompson, M. K. (ASEE Conferences, 2023-06-25)In Spring 2020, institutions were forced to make rapid changes to their teaching, attendance, assessment, and academic relief policies. Our institution moved all classes and assessment online, removed most attendance policies, extended the drop deadline, and allowed students to alter their grading system from A-F to credit/no-credit. Most classes and assessments continued to be online in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, before returning to typical pre-pandemic scheduling in Fall 2021. These accommodations were necessary to respond to public health advice, student and faculty illness, and ongoing uncertainty at the time. However, there are growing concerns about the effect that the pandemic and associated policies had on student learning and preparation for follow-on courses. We analyze student grade data and withdrawal rate for three large multi-section foundational mechanics courses between Fall 2015 - Fall 2022: Statics (91 sections), Mechanics of Deformable Bodies ('Deformables') (79 sections), and Dynamics (73 sections). Specifically, we look at Grade Point Average (GPA) and the proportion of students receiving either D grades, F grades, or withdrawing from each course (collectively known as the DFW rate). We separate our data into 4 time periods and compare results across these periods: Fall 2015 - Fall 2019 ('pre-pandemic'), Spring 2020 ('early-pandemic'), Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 ('mid-pandemic'), and Fall 2021 - Fall 2022 ('post-pandemic'). We find a significant increase in GPA and decrease in DFW rate in the Spring 2020 semester when classes were moved online and institutional polices were very lenient around grading and drop policies. Since Fall 2021 (when both course modality and institutional policies largely reverted) GPA and DFW rates in Statics have been virtually identical to pre-pandemic rates. However, we see significant decreases in GPA and significant increases in DFW rate in both Deformables and Dynamics. Statics is a prerequisite for both of these courses. This general trend was observed for almost all faculty members who taught classes across this time period, although the size of the effect varied. One section of Deformables has been offered asynchronously online since Fall 2015. This class also saw the same trends in GPA and DFW rate across the study period. We do not explicitly explore the reasons for these changes in this paper, but our experience in these classes suggests that students who took Statics mid-pandemic are not as well prepared for follow-on courses as students were pre-pandemic. The changes in GPA and DFW rate are a concern that is likely to extend to higher level courses. We intend to continue to track student progress through these courses and report on longer-term trends. Larger studies are warranted to help explain these trends.
- Engineering Mechanics Symposium 2021(Virginia Tech, 2021-04-21)The inaugural Engineering Mechanics Symposium took place on Wednesday, April 21, 2021. This symposium was a virtual event held via Zoom. The objective is to foster a community of collaboration and engagement across the many departments and disciplines represented by Engineering Mechanics researchers. The keynote lecture will be delivered by Dr. Maurizio Porfiri, an Institute Professor at New York University and an Engineering Mechanics Alumnus.
- Friction of Extensible Strips: an Extended Shear Lag Model with Experimental EvaluationMojdehi, Ahmad R.; Holmes, Douglas P.; Williams, Christopher B.; Long, Timothy E.; Dillard, David A. (2016-02-22)
- Identifying Factors for Designing a Successful Interactive Telemedical Training System for Remote Pediatric Physical ExamsMorshedzadeh, Elham; Muelenaer, Andre; Morris, Michelle; Werlich, Dana; Nelson, Margaret (Cumulus Association, 2021)During the 2020 pandemic, telemedical consultation became a core tool for continuous access to healthcare. However, the skills required of medical teams to provide pediatric healthcare through telehealth are new and undeveloped. To address these issues, our pilot study focused on the interaction between the nurse, patient, and provider with telehealth technology. This study sought to provide evidence that training protocols for operation of a telemedicine system such as a telemedicine cart and its corresponding attachments are highly effective. Based on our results, users (nurse and provider) need to be familiar with the functions of the cart and its components. This suggests that an interactive training system consisting of hands-on learning and augmented reality can elevate a pediatric telemedicine visit, from a video call to a comprehensive physical exam. This research received a “Pilot Translational and Clinical Studies Program” grant from the US National Institutes of Health in October 2020.
- Insect Microfluidics: Hearing and Breathing While TinyStaples, Anne E.; Mikel-Stites, Maxwell (IUTAM, 2021-08-27)Insects have evolved to handle fluids using strategies that vary significantly from those used by larger animals since, by virtue of their size, they interact with fluids in the microscale regime, where surface forces dominate. Here we discuss two examples from insect microfluidics: flow actuation in insect respiration, and the amplification of acoustic sound localization cues in a parasitoid fly. We review behavioral data and present the mathematical, computational, and microfluidic device models we have developed to represent idealized versions of these systems that retain the salient features. In both examples, the insects appear to make use of finely tuned structural and material properties in the organs that come into contact with the fluids in question. In the case of the fly, we show that a tympanal asymmetry of just 5% may lead to order-of-magnitude gains in its hearing abilities.
- Reflections on the 150th Anniversary of Winkler’s Foundation and its Profound Influence on the Field of AdhesionDillard, David A.; Mukherjee, Bikramjit; Batra, Romesh C. (2017-02-27)This year, 2017, marks the 150th anniversary of Emil Winkler’s seminal publication of the beam on elastic foundation (BoEF) solution [1] published in 1867 while a professor at the University of Prague. With wide-ranging interests in analysis of civil engineering structures, he initially proposed the BoEF model for the rather obvious application to sleepers and rails supported by the earth upon which they rest [2]. The essence of the model lies in the simple but profound assumption that the restoring force of an elastic foundation is linearly proportional to the deflection. The important resulting mechanics of materials solution has been applied to a wide range of engineering applications, including a plethora of discrete and continuous loading and boundary conditions, extensions to plates and pontoon bridges, nonlinear behavior, and even the analysis of deflections and stresses in pressurized cylindrical tanks, where the effective restoring force is not supplied by a separate medium but rather by the hoop stresses developed due to stretching of the curved walls.