SAS
S07

BAE 103

Energy in Biological Systems

Course Description

An introduction to energy flow and transformations within biological systems that include the human environment; and the production and processing of plants, animals and micro-organisms.  Topics to be covered include the engineering problem solving approach, basics of thermodynamics, psychrometrics, calorimetry and Gibb's energy. 

Course Rationale

Biosystems engineering is the application of engineering principals to biological systems. Biosystems engineers deal with water quality and environmental issues associated with the planning and design of structures and systems for managing our natural resources; machine systems for food processing and production; processing and packaging of food and biotechnology products; and the design of environmental control systems for residences, plant and animal production.  The unifying link in the biosystems engineering profession is the interface between engineering and biology.

This course was conceived and designed to provide a framework that illustrates the application of the engineering problem solving approach to biological systems.  While many of the topics in this course require a fundamental background in calculus, physics, chemistry, biology, and the engineering sciences for the students to fully master, it is expected that an elementary treatment of these topics in the first year will provide students with framework and expectation for understanding basic and engineering sciences as they apply to the biosystems engineering profession.  This course will also serve as a formal introduction to psychrometrics, Gibbs' energy and calorimetry; topics void of more formalized treatments within the basic and engineering sciences.   

Learning Outcomes

At the completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Apply the engineering problem solving approach to perform energy balances on biological systems;

2. Apply the fundamentals laws of thermodynamics to solving problems relating to energy transfer and transformations within biological systems;

3. Use the psychrometric chart to solve problems relating to air-water vapor mixtures;

4. Apply the Gibb's Energy concept to estimate the chemical potential to build proteins and power muscle contraction;

5. Use direct and indirect bomb calorimetry to estimate the energy content of biological; and

6. Estimate power and energy requirements for controlling plant and animal environments.

Course Syllabus