The research infrastructure of the College of Engineering (CoE) include prototyping facilities, bioinformatics (including signal processing and data mining), applied biomedical engineering laboratories (including nanotechnology), and additional facilities.
Prototyping Facilities
The machine shop include hydraulic presses, vertical and horizontal band saws, motorized sanders, sand blasting equipment, engine lathes, vertical and horizontal milling machines (computer controlled), grinders, drill presses, and prototype finishing equipment (buffer, polisher, wire wheels).The machine shop is also fitted with specialty equipment designed to work with sheet metal (a hydraulic shear, a manual shear, Bead and Spartan roller, notcher, hole puncher, and ornamental bender), welding (miller, arc welder, spot welder, oxygen/acetylene cutting and brazing, and steel deck welding table with vise) and carpentry (table saws, band saws, scroll saw, miter saw, and disc sander). The Department of Industrial Engineering hosts Rapid Prototyping Facilities including a 3-dimensional thermoplastic printer (Thermojet Multi-Jet Modeling) with a 300 x 400 x 600 dpi resolution and a maximum model size of 10 x 7.5 x 8 inches. The Department of Biomedical Engineering hosts prototyping instrument (Prodigy Plus Strata Systems) including a resolution of 143 dpi and a maximum size of 8 x 8 x 12 inches.
Bioinformatics
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has considerable computer resources in the area of Bioinformatics which includes electronic medical records management, biomedical signal processing, and data mining. These resources have been used to analyze huge amounts of data to support large-scale information systems in medical and bioinformatic domains.They have also been used for electronic medical records (EMRs) such as the anesthesia information systems and the intestine transplant information systems, all to extract useful patterns/knowledge to improve clinical decision-making, adherence to guidelines, and/or patient safety.
Applied Biomedical Engineering Laboratories
Applied Biomedical Engineering Laboratories include
- the Biomedical Optics Laboratory (Manns) is used for the design of medical laser beam delivery systems, study and optimization of laser-tissue interactions, modeling of optical-thermal laser tissue interactions, optical modeling of the eye and vision correction procedures, design of optical imaging and diagnostic systems. The laboratory is fitted with high power lasers (Er:YAG, Carbon dioxide, Diode laser), laser-thermal testing platforms, and benchtop prototypes of optical/laser systems.
- The Biomedical Atomic Force Microscopy Laboratory (Ziebarth) focuses on the design of custom nano indentation systems, measurement of tissue mechanical properties from nano to micro scale. Resources at this facility include customized atomic force microscopes for mechanical property testing.
- The Stem Cell and Mechanobiology Laboratory (Huang) is used for studying the mechanobiology of orthopedic soft tissues and adult stem cells, dental stem cell research and their clinical applications. Resources available at this facility include cell culture systems, microscopic imaging systems, real time PCR system, and a biospectral imaging system.
The Tissue Biomechanics Laboratory (Gu) focuses on the evaluation of the biomechanical, electrical, and transport behaviors of biological soft tissues, mechanobiology of intervertebral disc and connective tissues. Much of the work is based upon measurements coupled with finite element modeling. Instrumentation available includes biomaterial testing systems, mechanical analyzers, and related spectrophotometers.
- The Cartilage Tissue Engineering and Mesenchymal Stem Cells Laboratory (Cheung) evaluates the engineering properties of cartilage tissue, mesenchymal stem cells, osteoarthritis. Equipment available in this laboratory includes bioreactors for cyclical loading and strain and tissue culture facilities.
- The Diabetes Tissue Engineering and Nanotechnology Laboratory, housed at the Diabetes Research Institute (Tomei), focuses on tissue engineering with an emphasis on integrating engineering principles for medical applications. By combining engineering materials and biochemical factors with cells and other tissue. Equipment within this laboratory includes Molecular Devices Spectramax M5 UV-visible, fluorescent, and luminescent microplate/cuvette reader, Perkin Elmer Spectrum 100 Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer, a Wyatt Technologies Dynapro Titan Dynamic Light Scattering Instrument, Hitachi LaChrom HPLC with UV and fluorescent detectors and auto-sampling, Savant environmental speed vac AES 1000 and lyophilizer. The laboratory also houses state of the art equipment for oxygen monitoring, fabrication of scaffolds, cell culture processes, and molecular biology experimentation.
- The Biomaterials Laboratory (Andreopoulos) focuses on the synthesis and characterization of biomaterials, drug delivery systems, "stimuli-responsive" polymers, tissue engineering, biosensors and circulatory assist device technology. Capabilities within this lab include polymer synthesis, materials analysis, cell culture facilities.
- The Neurosensory Engineering Laboratory (Ozdamar) focuses on neurosensory electrophysiological testing and monitoring, neural signal processing, brain waves, and auditory evoked potentials. Instrumentation available include an evoked potential system, otoacoustic emission system, and an EEG system.
- The Biomedical Imaging Laboratory (Zhao) develops medical imaging systems, radioisotope imaging methods, bioimage processing, image guided robotic surgery. This laboratory is equipped with an image navigation system for robotic surgery.
- The Bioinstrumentation Design Laboratory (Bohorquez) focuses on the development of biomedical instrumentation, improved methods for neurophysiological monitoring and biosignal processing, and development of computer based medical devices. This laboratory is fitted with bioinstrumentation prototyping equipment and testing tools.
- The Biomechanics Laboratory, housed in the Department of Industrial Engineering and under the directon of Asfour, conducts research in human performance enhancement and biomechanical analysis for injury prevention. The lab features a motion capture studio rigged with several top of the line computers, 10 high speed cameras, 4 force plates, and electromyography equipment. This biomechanics lab is one of the only motion capture studios in Florida. The lab uses the world renowned NEXUS motion capture system, which uses high speed infra red cameras to capture the human motion.
- Additional Facilities
The College of Engineering also has computational facilities, the bulk of which is used for its virtual desktop infrastructure for academic computing (IEmaxView). The hardware that runs this system is composed of 42 Dell PowerEdge servers. Each server has dual quad core Intel processors and 32 GIG of memory. The system includes 70 TB of separate dedicated storage plus access to the latest engineering software packages.
The Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering houses three laboratories including
- environmental engineering laboratory for handling and evaluating environmental media for chemical and microbiological characteristics,
- a full scale structural engineering laboratory for evaluating tensile, compressive, torsion, and impact properties of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, wood, and concrete,
- a geotechnical laboratory for evaluating the engineering properties of soils and foundation materials.
The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering houses
- a measurements laboratory fitted with strain gages, load cells, oscilloscopes, digital scales, and accelerometers,
- a materials laboratory fitted with microscopes, polishing machines, cutting machines, bending apparatus, and furnaces,
- a controls laboratory fitted with a signal generator and motor-load control system,
- an experimental fluid thermal sciences laboratory fitted with a large-scale subsonic wind tunnel, convection enclosure, forced-vortex rotating basin, viscometer, calorimeter, Rankine cycler, and hydrogen bubble flow visualization equipment,
- a computation fluid dynamics laboratory for modeling fluid flow,
- an internal combustion engines laboratory designed to evaluate both conventional and high performance internal combustion engines, emission formation in combustion systems and automobile mechanisms as well as to study the use of conventional and synthetic fuels of the future such as hydrogen and methanol, and
- the Dorgan solar and fuel cell energy laboratory which focuses on evaluating mechanisms of water transfer in fuel cells, two-phase flow phenomena in fuel cells, and the design of new fuel cells.
