Cellular Biomechanics and Sports Science

Villanova’s Cellular Biomechanics and Sports Science Laboratory is dedicated to investigating transport phenomena in biological systems and applying lessons learned to bio-inspired applications.

Focused on experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies of multi-scale transport phenomena, current research areas include:

Bio-fluid mechanics

• Fluid dynamic and transport aspects in cardiovascular systems
• Cellular biomechanics and mechanotransduction
• Patient specific hemodynamics
• Brain biomechanics

Bio-mimicry

• Lift generation in a soft porous media and its applications to super lubrication
• The lift mechanics of skiing

Transport Phenomena

• Theoretical, experimental and computational fluid mechanics
• Porous media flow
• Jet impingement and its application to electronics cooling
• Ship hydrodynamics

Facilities

In these areas of study, the following facilities and equipment are available:  

Soft Porous Lubrication

• Macro-scale soft porous lubrication apparatus
• Small-scale soft porous lubrication apparatus
• Sliding motion lubrication testing setup

Multi-scale Porous Media Flow

• Permeameters—experimental setups to measure the compression-dependent Darcy permeability of a thin porous layer and random porous media
• Scaled-up indenter for macro-scale porous media—an apparatus for measuring both fluid and solid phases lift generation in macro-scale porous media
• Scaled-up indenter for meso-scale porous media— an apparatus for measuring both fluid and solid phases lift generation in meso-scale porous media

Brain Biomechanics Apparatus

• Experimental apparatus to study the translational impacts and rotational impacts on an artificial head model

An Experimental Setup to Study Squeeze Damping

Cellular Biomechanics Experimental Setup

• Laminar fume hood
• Incubator
• Inverted Microscope
• Flow Chambers with Peristaltic Pump