Fundamentals of

Bioengineering II
Lecture 2: Introduction to Engineering Calculations

Asst. Prof. Betül Gürünlü

Course Book
• Bioengineering
Fundamentals, Ann
Saterbak, Ka-Yiu-San,
Larry V. McIntire,
Pearson
Syllabus
• Introduction to Engineering Calculations
• Foundations of Conservation Principles
• Conservation of Mass
• Conservation of Energy
• Conservation of Charge
• Conservation of Momentum
• Case Studies
After completing this lecture, you should be able
to do the following:
• Perform unit conversions to attain answers in the desired units.
• Distinguish between intensive and extensive properties and list examples of each
type.
• Define the physical variables commonly used in accounting and conservation
equations.
• Specifically, you should be familiar with mass, moles, and molecular weight; mass
and mole fractions; concentration and molarity; temperature; pressure; density;
force and weight; potential, kinetic, and internal energy; heat and work;
momentum; charge and current; and flow rates.
• Report answers with an appropriate number of significant figures.
• Adopt a methodology for solving engineering problems; the one described is
used to solve many example problems throughout this textbook.
• Begin to develop a sense for the types of engineering problems that bioengineers
address.
Instructional Objectives
• On December 11, 1998, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration launched the Mars Climate Orbiter, a spacecraft
designed to function as an interplanetary weather satellite and a
communications relay. It never reached its destination.
• The loss of the $193 million spacecraft resulted from an embarrassing
oversight during the transfer of information between the Mars
Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado and the mission
navigation team in California.
• In calculating an operation critical to maneuvering the spacecraft
properly into the Mars orbit, one team used British units while the
other used metric units.
• As a result, instead of the planned 140 kilometers (90 miles), the
Mars Climate Orbiter approached the planet at an altitude of about
57 kilometers (35 miles),2 causing it to either crash in the Martian
atmosphere or skip off into space.
• Although hundreds of millions of dollars were lost and much hope for
scientific advancement was dashed in the failure of this mission, the
losses associated with mistakes of this nature in the field of
biomedical engineering could be even greater, for human lives are
involved. If a bioengineer were to miscalculate the tolerable toxic
range of a drug because of unit conversion, a physician could
prescribe an incorrect dosage and cause a patient to die. With so
much at stake, the importance of learning basic concepts and giving
meticulous attention to applying them cannot be overemphasized.
• A thorough understanding of the material presented in this chapter is
crucial to your success throughout your bioengineering career. This
chapter is an overview of principles and definitions that lay the
groundwork for problem solving in bioengineering.
• In Section 1.6, we will demonstrate the relevance of this introductory
material in real-life applications.
Physical Variables, Units, and Dimensions
• Being able to measure and quantify physical variables is critical to
finding solutions to problems in biological and medical systems. Most
of the numbers encountered in engineering calculations represent
the magnitude of measurable physical variables, which are
quantities, properties, or variables that can be measured or
calculated by multiplying or dividing other variables.
• Examples of physical variables include mass, length, temperature, and
velocity. Measured physical variables are usually represented with a
number or scalar value (e.g., 6) and a unit (e.g., mL/min).
Physical Variables, Units, and Dimensions
• A unit is a predetermined quantity of a particular variable that is
defined by custom, convention, or law. Numbers used in engineering
calculations must be given with the appropriate units. For example, a
statement that “The total blood flow in the circulation of an adult
human is 5” is meaningless, but “The total blood flow rate in the
circulation of an adult human is 5 L/min” quantifies how much blood
flows through the adult circulatory system.
Physical Variables, Units, and Dimensions
• A mistake that beginning engineers often make is to write variables
without units. Students sometimes claim that they can keep track of
the units in their heads and do not need to write them down
repeatedly. This attitude leads to many mistakes when calculating
solutions, which can lead to significant consequences, as in the Mars
Climate Orbiter incident. Experienced engineers rarely omit units.
• The basis for measurement of seven physical variables agreed upon
internationally is given in Table 1.1. These include length, mass, time,
electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous
intensity.
 Physical Variables, Units, and Dimensions
• In engineering calculations, many
other physical variables such as force
or energy are commonly used. The
units of these variables can be
reduced to combinations of the seven
base quantities. In this textbook, the
term dimension can be thought of as
a generic unit of a physical variable,
which is not scaled to a particular
amount for quantitative purposes. The
dimensional quantities you will
encounter in this textbook are listed in
Appendix A. The symbols for the
dimensions are given in Table 1.1.
Unit Conversion
• As discussed in Section 1.2, measured physical variables are usually
represented by a number and a unit. The two most commonly used
systems are the Système International d’Unités (SI), or metric system,
and the British, or English, system.
• Engineers must be familiar with both systems, since institutions use
and publish data in both.
• Many of the physical variables frequently encountered in
bioengineering will be discussed in detail in Section 1.5. The physical
variables and corresponding symbols used in this text are listed in
Appendix A.
Unit Conversion
• Unit conversion is the process by which the units associated with a physical
variable are converted to another set of units by using conversion factors.
Common unit conversions are summarized on the inside front cover and in
Appendix B.

• You probably already know some conversion factors, such as that 1 in. is
equal to 2.54 cm and 2.2 lbm is equal to 1 kg.
• To convert a quantity expressed in terms of one unit to its equivalent in
terms of another unit, multiply the given quantity by the conversion factor
(new unit/old unit). Just as you would reduce multiples of a number in
fractions, cancel out units. For example, you can convert the mass of the
standard man in the British system (154 lbm) to its equivalent in the SI
system:
Unit Conversion
• Because the unit lbm is present in both the numerator and the
denominator, they cancel out. Writing out the units of the conversion
factor is critical; if you do not, you may incorrectly scale the physical
variable of interest.
• Conversion factors are also required to convert within a system of
units. For example, within the British system, we convert the mass of
a 2200@lbm car to its equivalent in tons as follows:
Unit Conversion
• Within the SI system, we may convert the length of the average
adult’s femur, 430 mm, to its equivalent in meters:
Unit Conversion
• A series of prefixes is used to
indicate multiples and submultiples
of units in the SI system (Table 1.2).
The “m” preceding the “m” of
meters indicates “milli-” or 10-3 of
the unit. Often, a series of two or
more conversion factors is required
to convert a value in a given set of
units to the desired one. In
situations with several conversions,
it is even more critical to write out
the units.
Unit Conversion
• As an engineer, it is exceedingly important for you to develop a sense
of scale and to be able to tell whether your answer is reasonable (see
Section 1.9).
• Developing a sense of the magnitude of various physical variables is
an important goal.
• Tables 1.3–1.5 give ranges of pressure, length, and current for up to
20 orders of magnitude. Think about the types of bioengineering
problems in which you are interested and what their scale is.
Dimensional Analysis
• In high school algebra, you
learned to manipulate equations
to solve for unknown variables.
Engineers employ the same
fundamental principle to
decipher very complex models
and equations. It is a tool to
simplify complicated
bioengineering problems into
smaller, more comprehensible
basic tasks in order to find a
solution.
Dimensional Analysis
Dimensional Analysis
Dimensional Analysis
• Dimensional analysis is an algebraic tool engineers use to manipulate
the units in a problem. Numerical values and their corresponding
units may be added or subtracted only if the units are the same.

5m-3m=2m
whereas
5 m - 2 s = ??
• The units of meters and seconds are not the same, so equation [1.4-
2] cannot be executed. On the other hand, multiplication and division
always combine numerical values and their corresponding units.
Dimensional Analysis

• Properly constructed equations representing general relationships

between physical variables must be dimensionally homogeneous; that
is, the dimensions of terms that are added or subtracted must be the
same, and the dimensions of the right-hand side of the equation must
be the same as those of the left-hand side.
• As an example, consider the equation developed by Pennes to relate
blood perfusion rate (V #/V[L-3Mt-1]) to volumetric heat transfer rate
to the tissues (J [L-1 Mt-3]) in the human forearm according to the
equation:
• where Cp[L2 t-2 T-1] is the heat capacity, Ta [T] is the arterial blood
temperature, and Tv [T] is the venous blood temperature. We can
confirm that the units on each side of equation [1.4-5] reduce to [L-1
Mt-3], and therefore the equation is dimensionally homogeneous:
Specific Physical Variables
• This section highlights physical variables commonly used to develop
and solve systems by means of accounting and conservation
equations—concepts that are developed in the remainder of the
book. We also briefly introduce extensive and intensive properties
and scalar and vector quantities. The physical variables are defined
and described in the context of five complex engineering scenarios in
Section 1.6.
 Extensive and Intensive Properties
• Physical properties can be classified as either extensive or
intensive. An extensive property is defined as a physical quantity
that is the sum of the properties of separate non-interacting
subsystems that compose the entire system.
• The numerical value of an extensive property depends on the size
of the system, the quantity of matter in the system, or the sample
taken. In trying to think about whether a physical property is
extensive or intensive, consider whether the physical property
would change if the system of interest is doubled or halved.
• If the physical property changes when the system is doubled or
halved, the property is extensive. Another characteristic of an
extensive property is that it can be counted.
• Later, you will learn that only extensive properties may be
counted in accounting and conservation equations. In this book,
extensive properties that are counted include total mass and
moles; individual species mass and moles; elemental mass and
moles; positive, negative, and net electrical charge; linear and
angular momentum; and total, mechanical, and electrical energy.
Scalar and Vector Quantities
• Physical variables are either scalar or vector quantities. Scalar
quantities can be defined by a magnitude alone.
• A vector quantity must be defined by both magnitude and direction.
The vector must be defined with respect to a reference point to its
origin, which can be done by specifying an arbitrary point as an origin
and using a coordinate system, such as Cartesian (rectangular),
spherical, or cylindrical, to Show the direction and magnitude of the
vector. To denote a vector quantity in this lecture, we use an arrow
above the variable or symbol that represents the quantity (e.g., v> for
velocity vector).
• Two types of vectors are especially important: position and velocity.
Position vectors describe the distance and direction of an object’s
location with respect to an origin; velocity vectors describe the
direction with respect to an origin and the distance an object moves
per instantaneous time period. To find the magnitude of a vector
using the Cartesian system, take the square root of the sum of the
squares of each component. For example, a (45 i > + 45 j > )@km/hr
vector in a rectangular coordinate system could describe a car that
moves east at 45 km/hr and north at 45 km/hr. However, the same
car can be described as moving northeast at a constant 63.6 km/hr.
Some examples of scalar and vector quantities are listed in Table 1.8.
• Vectors can be multiplied in two different ways.
The scalar product (or dot product) of two
vectors is a scalar quantity, as the name
indicates. The scalar product is equal to the
product of the magnitudes of the two vectors
and the cosine of the angle between them:
• Note that if the two vectors are perpendicular, their scalar product is
zero. The scalar product is commutative, so A># B > = B ># A>.
• The vector product (or cross product) of two vectors is a vector
quantity perpendicular to the plane of the two original vectors. Its
direction can be found by the so-called right-hand rule. Its magnitude
is the product of the magnitudes of the two vectors and the sine of
the angle between them:
Engineering Case Studies
Parkinson’s Disease
• Parkinson’s disease is a disorder of the central nervous system that
affects over million Americans. It is characterized by rigid muscles,
involuntary tremor, and difficulty in moving limbs.
• The disease is caused by the destruction of neurons that secrete
dopamine, an inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps regulate the
excitation signals for movement. The reduced level of dopamine
available in the brain causes the feedback circuits to work improperly,
producing the rigidity and tremors associated with Parkinson’s
disease.
Parkinson’s Disease
• A biotech company has developed a new drug that has the potential
to increase dopamine availability in the brain for patients with
Parkinson’s disease. A potential medication has been determined but
has been tested only in animal subjects, who have the drug directly
injected through a hole drilled in the skull. This intracranial delivery is
hardly a feasible option for human clinical trials, since Parkinson’s
disease is chronic and the drug will need to be continually
administered
Parkinson’s Disease
• As bioengineering experts at this
company, you and your team are
asked to formulate a delivery
mechanism with proper dosages so
that the drug can go to human
clinical trials. You must determine the
appropriate dose and dosing interval
(i.e., how frequently the treatment
needs to be administered) as well as
the most convenient, safe, and
effective manner of drug delivery.
In this problem you need to analyze which
task to accomplish first. Because the
method of administering the drug will
affect how it is formulated, we will decide
upon the delivery method first.
In this section, we discuss some tools to
define this problem, using the following
concepts:
• Mass
• Moles
• Mass and mole fraction
• Molecular weight and average molecular
weight
• Concentration and molarity
Parkinson’s Disease
• Since direct drug injection through the skull is not a realistic option,
other methods must be considered (see box). Of these, only oral
administration, which is by far the most convenient and accepted
method, is feasible. The other routes require hospital settings
(intravenous, intramuscular), have problems with the organ targeted
for absorption (rectal, inhalation, and topical), or can be interfered
with by the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, such as tremors
(buccal/sublingual, subcutaneous). A drug taken orally can be
absorbed across the membranes of the gastrointestinal tract into the
patient’s bloodstream and then into the targeted organ.
Parkinson’s Disease
Drugs can be administered through various routes:
• 1. Intravenous: delivered directly into the bloodstream.
• 2. Intramuscular injection: injected directly into the muscle.
• 3. Oral: taken through the mouth, as with pills.
• 4. Buccal/sublingual: dissolved from small tablets held in the mouth or
under the tongue.
• 5. Rectal: administered by a suppository or enema.
• 6. Subcutaneous: injected under the skin, as with insulin.
• 7. Inhalation: contained in an aerosol inhaled by the patient.
• 8. Topical: absorbed through the skin.
Parkinson’s Disease

• To reach the target organ effectively, delivery must overcome

limitations involving drugs administered orally, including the first-pass
effect, the effect of food on the drug, and the toxic effect of the drug
on the gastrointestinal system. However, in developing a drug for
patients with Parkinson’s disease, the major obstacle is creating a
drug that will cross the blood–brain barrier to reach the brain.
Parkinson’s Disease

• The brain has a specialized barrier called the blood–brain barrier, which
consist of adjacent endothelial cells tightly fused with one another so that
permeability of drugs and other molecules is significantly reduced.
Designed to protect the brain from harmful substances, the blood–brain
barrier severely restricts the transfer of high-molecular-weight molecules
and polar (lipid-insoluble) compounds from the blood to the brain tissue.
Lipid-mediated transport is generally proportional to the lipid solubility of
the molecule, but is restricted to molecules with a molecular weight lower
than approximately 500 g/mol. Currently, 100% of large-molecule drugs
and over 98% of small-molecule drugs do not cross the blood–brain barrier.
Drug design must recognize and work with this constraint.
Parkinson’s Disease

• To determine the appropriate dose for the drug, you must be comfortable
wit unit conversion and with the concepts of mass, moles, and molecular
weight. Atomic weight and molecular weight should be familiar terms.
• Atomic weight is the mass of an atom relative to 12-carbon (an isotope of
carbon with 6 protons and 6 neutrons), which has a mass with a magnitude
of exactly 12. The periodic table lists atomic weights for all the elements
(Appendix C).
• The molecular weight (M [MN-1]) of a compound is the sum of the atomic
weights of the atoms that constitute the molecules of a compound. The
molecular weight of a substance can be expressed in a number of units,
including daltons, g/mol, kg/kmol, and lbm/lb@mol. The dalton is a unit
used in biology and medicine and is equivalent to g/mol.
Parkinson’s Disease

• One mole of a species in the SI system, designated g-mol, is defined to

contain the same number of molecules as there are atoms in 12 grams of
12-carbon. This is Avogadro’s number or 6.023 * 1023 molecules. The
British system uses a similar concept, but the basic mole unit is lbm@mol.
This is defined in an analogous manner:
• A lbm@mol is equal to the number of atoms in 12 lbm of 12-carbon.
Because a lbm is larger than a gram, a lbm@mol is approximately 450
times larger than a g-mol. In general, you will use g-mol instead of
lbm@mol. In fact, if the units of a quantity are specified as mol, assume g-
mol. One way to think of a mole is as the amount of species whose mass
(in grams) is equal to its molecular weight. For example, 1 g-mol of CO2
contains 44 g of material, since the molecular weight of CO2 is 44 g/g-mol.
Parkinson’s Disease
• The amount of a material is usually expressed through the physical
variables of mass or moles. Both mass (m [M]) and moles (n [N]) are base
physical variables (Table 1.1). The mass is a measure of the amount of a
material, whereas the number of moles present in a sample is calculated.
The molecular weight of component A (MA) is related to the mass of
component A (mA) and the number of moles of component A (nA) as
follows:

• Common biological molecules vary widely in molecular weight. Appendix D

lists the molecular weight of common biological molecules (Table D.1).
Solving Systems of Linear Equations in
MATLAB
• Most of the problems presented in this text, as well as those you will
encounter in the field, involve solving for one or more unknown
values. While systems limited to one or two unknown variables often
can be solved easily by hand, solving more complicated systems can
be considerably more cumbersome.
• However, for systems described by linear equations, there are
computational techniques that can be applied to minimize tedious
calculations by hand. The computational tools described below can
be applied only to solving sets of independent, linear equations.
Solving Systems of Linear Equations in
MATLAB
Solving Systems of Linear Equations in
MATLAB
• The use of computer software programs such as MATLAB makes
solving systems of linear equations relatively easy, since they are
designed to handle matrices and vectors. The discussion below
assumes some familiarity with MATLAB.
• A system of linear equations can be represented by a matrix equation.
Consider the following example with two linear equations and two
unknown variables:
Solving Systems of Linear Equations in
MATLAB
• This system of equations is represented by the following matrix
equation in the form

• where A is a 2 * 2 matrix and x and y are vectors. Such a matrix

equation is analogous to the following scalar equation:
• Such a matrix equation is analogous to the following scalar equation:
EXAMPLE 1.30 Using MAT LAB to Solve Three
Linear Equations
• where a and y are known quantities and x is the unknown variable. In
this equation, it is easy to solve for x by simple division:
EXAMPLE 1.30 Using MAT LAB to Solve Three
Linear Equations
EXAMPLE 1.30 Using MAT LAB to Solve Three
Linear Equations
Methodology for Solving Engineering
Problems
• Developing a pattern or methodology for solving engineering
problems is important for consistency and thoroughness. The
application of accounting and/conservation equations (discussed in
Chapters 2–7) should be carried out in an organized manner; this
makes the solution easy to follow, check, and be used by others.
• As a new engineer, you may find going through these many steps
tedious and excessive for seemingly simple problems. However, when
the level of difficulty increases, having a method or process to fall
back on will be invaluable. Experienced engineers use most of the
steps below when solving real-world problems.
Methodology for Solving Engineering
Problems
• The methodology laid out here or one similar to it should be used to
solve problems throughout your bioengineering career. The method
outlined below is a general guide of the steps that will be followed to
solve problems in Lecture 3–7 of this lecture, and as in real-world
problems, only steps applicable to the problem should be performed.
• Other methodologies for solving problems are also valid; the critical
issue is that you develop a thorough method and implement it
regularly. As you mature as an engineer, it is appropriate that you
develop your own problem solving method.
1. Assemble.
• Information regarding the problem, including a picture, should be assembled and
rewritten.
• (a) The objective of the problem or the answer that you are seeking to find
should be clearly stated. This is often written as: Find: the flow rate . .
• (b) Draw a diagram showing all relevant information. Often, a simple box
diagram showing all components entering and leaving the system allows
information to be summarized in a convenient way. The system, surroundings,
and system boundary should be drawn and labeled. When possible, all known
quantitative information should be shown on the diagram.
• (c) Set up a calculation table. The known values on your diagram, the component
entering and leaving the system, form the foundation for the table. Units should
be consistent across the table. The unknown components on the table (blanks)
are often the desired answers. As you solve for different components, you can fill
in the table. (Developing a table is optional, although useful, especially in
multicomponent mass balance problems.)
2. Analyze.
A framework for understanding what is known and what is not known
is developed at this stage
• State any assumptions applied to the problem.
• Collect and state any extra data.
• List the variables and notations (symbols) adapted for the problem,
and select a set of units for the problem.
• State a basis of calculation. A basis is a specified input or output to a
system (usually given as a flow rate or amount).
• If the problem involves chemical reaction(s), list the compounds
involved and stoichiometrically balance the equation(s).
3. Calculate
• Calculate. Equations are developed and solved in a logical manner.
• (a) Write down all appropriate accounting and/or conservation
equations
• (b) By applying the appropriate equations, calculate the unknown
quantities.
4. Finalize
Correct answers to the problem statement are stated clearly.
(a) State the answers clearly with appropriate significant figures and units.
(b) Check that your results are reasonable and make sense. Three methods
to validate a quantitative problem include:
i. Back-substitution: Substitute your solution back into the initial equation
and make sure that it works.
ii. Order-of-magnitude estimation: Develop a crude and simple-to-solve
approximation of the answer and make sure the more exact solution is
reasonably close to it.
iii. Test of reasonableness: Applying a test of reasonableness means verifying
that the solution makes sense (e.g., the power needed to operate a
pacemaker should be less than that required to operate the facilities at your
university).
Summary
• In this chapter, we defined physical variables, units, and dimensions
and showed how to use dimensional analysis and unit conversion. We
elaborated on the physical variables in the context of complex
engineering applications.
• We also discussed why quantitation is important in bioengineering
and how to effectively present the quantities and data obtained
through experiments and calculations.
• We demonstrated how MATLAB can be used to solve for unknown
variables in a system of linear equations. Finally, we outlined a
methodology for solving engineering problems, which is used in
solving many problems in the remainder of this book.
END of the CHAPTER