The Biomechanical Engineering (BME) Program has teaching and research activities which focus
primarily on musculoskeletal biomechanics, neuromuscular biomechanics, cardiovascular biomechanics, and rehabilitation engineering. Research in other areas including hearing, ocean, plant, and vision biomechanics exist in collaboration with associated faculty in biology, engineering, and medicine. The Biomechanical Engineering Program has particularly strong research interactions with the Mechanics and Computation and the Design groups, and the departments of Functional Restoration, Neurology, Radiology, and Surgery in the School of Medicine.
The Design Group emphasizes cognitive skill development for creative design. It is concerned with automatic control, computer-aided design, creativity, design aesthetics, design for manufacturability, design research, experimental stress analysis, fatigue and fracture mechanics, finite element analysis, human factors, kinematics, manufacturing systems, microcomputers in design, micro-electromechanics systems (MEMS), robotics, and vehicle dynamics. The Design Group offers undergraduate and graduate programs in Product Design (jointly with the Department of Art and Art History) and is centrally involved in the founding of Stanford's new Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
The Flow Physics and Computational Engineering Group (FPCE) is developing new theories, models, and computational tools for accurate engineering design analysis and control of complex flows (including acoustics, chemical reactions, interactions with electromagnetic waves, plasmas, and other phenomena) of interest in aerodynamics, electronics cooling, environment engineering, materials processing, planetary entry, propulsion and power systems, and other areas. A significant emphasis of FPCE research is on modeling and analysis of physical phenomena in engineering systems. FPCE students and research staff are developing new methods and tools for generation, access, display, interpretation and post-processing of large databases resulting from numerical simulations of physical systems. Research in FPCE ranges from advanced simulation of complex turbulent flows to active flow control. The FPCE faculty teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in acoustics, aerodynamics, computational fluid mechanics, computational mathematics, fluid mechanics, combustion, and thermodynamics and propulsion.
The Mechanics and Computational Group covers biomechanics, continuum mechanics, dynamics, experimental and computational mechanics, finite element analysis, fluid dynamics, fracture mechanics, micromechanics, nanotechnology, and simulation based design. Qualified students can work as research project assistants, engaging in thesis research in working association with the faculty director and fellow students. Projects include analysis, synthesis, and control of systems; biomechanics; flow dynamics of liquids and gases; fracture and micro-mechanics, vibrations, and nonlinear dynamics; and original theoretical, computational, and experimental investigations in the strength and deformability of elastic and inelastic elements of machines and structures.