Biotransport: Principles and Applications

Citation

Roselli, R. J., & Diller, K. R. (2011). Biotransport: Principles and Applications. Springer.

Chapter Summary

The book has fifteen chapters and runs to about 1,290 pages (the Library of Congress gives 1,286). Its plan is unusually regular. After one chapter on the teaching framework and two on general concepts and problem solving, it treats fluid, heat and mass transport in three parallel blocks, and each block repeats the same progression of approaches: a macroscopic approach, a shell-balance approach for one-dimensional problems, and a general microscopic approach. The heat and mass blocks open with a fundamentals chapter; the fluid block opens with the rheology of biological fluids. This is the structure the publisher describes when it says the sections on biofluid, bioheat and biomass transport are subdivided into chapters on fundamentals, macroscopic transport, one-dimensional steady and unsteady transport, and general multidimensional microscopic transport.

Chapter 1: Introduction to HPL Methodology

The opening chapter, about thirty pages, sets out the book's teaching framework. The publisher says the text was designed to serve as a guide for teaching and studying within the "How People Learn" (HPL) framework and grew out of the VaNTH Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering Educational Technologies, a National Science Foundation consortium of Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Texas and Harvard/MIT.

Chapters 2–3: Fundamental Concepts in Biotransport; Modeling and Solving Biotransport Problems

These two chapters, about seventy pages together, lay out the common concepts of transport and the way transport problems are modelled and solved before any one kind of transport is treated.

Chapters 4–7: Biofluid transport

Rheology of Biological Fluids (Chapter 4) is followed by three chapters that treat flow at increasing levels of detail: Macroscopic Approach for Biofluid Transport (Chapter 5, the longest in the block at roughly 150 pages), Shell Balance Approach for One-Dimensional Biofluid Transport (Chapter 6) and General Microscopic Approach for Biofluid Transport (Chapter 7).

Chapters 8–11: Bioheat transport

The heat-transfer block follows the same pattern: Heat Transfer Fundamentals (Chapter 8), Macroscopic Approach to Bioheat Transport (Chapter 9), Shell Balance Approach for One-Dimensional Bioheat Transport (Chapter 10) and General Microscopic Approach for Bioheat Transport (Chapter 11).

Chapters 12–15: Biomass transport

The mass-transfer block is the largest, at roughly 430 pages: Mass Transfer Fundamentals (Chapter 12), Macroscopic Approach to Biomass Transport (Chapter 13), Shell Balance Approach for One-Dimensional Biomass Transport (Chapter 14, about 145 pages) and General Microscopic Approach for Biomass Transport (Chapter 15).

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Framework and foundations

• HPL methodology: the "How People Learn" framework the book is built around.
• Modelling and solving transport problems: the shared approach to setting up and solving problems before the three transport types.

Chapters 4–15: Three transport types, three levels of approach

• Rheology of biological fluids: the flow behaviour of biological fluids, in Chapter 4.
• Macroscopic approach: balances over a whole system, for fluid, heat and mass.
• Shell balance approach: one-dimensional problems solved by balances on a thin shell.
• General microscopic approach: the general multidimensional equations of transport.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• One method repeated across three kinds of transport. The contents show fluid, heat and mass transport each organised into macroscopic, shell-balance and general microscopic chapters, so a method learned once is applied three times; the publisher calls the book a coherent and concise exposition covering fluid, heat and mass flows.
• Designed for self-study and active learning. The publisher says the text provides numerous example problems with detailed numerical solutions, includes intermediate steps in derivations, and is meant to free class time for skill-building and open-ended problems.
• Challenge problems and exercises. The publisher describes extensive examples of learning challenges written by the authors for their own biotransport courses, with chapter summaries, review questions and over 230 problems at the ends of chapters.
• Usable in two kinds of course. The publisher says it works in a traditional didactic course or in an active-learning course organised around open-ended challenge problems.

Limitations

• Very large. At about 1,290 pages, with fifteen chapters of widely differing length, no one course will cover it; the block structure makes selection easier, but instructors must choose among the three transport types or among the three levels.
• Heavy framework. One chapter of about thirty pages is devoted to the teaching methodology and the book is organised around it. Readers who simply want the transport content must decide how much of the framework to use.
• Introductory aim, large scope. The publisher says the book is written primarily for introductory biomedical engineering and bioengineering students, yet it includes general microscopic treatments of three transport types, so students may find the scale of the later chapters demanding.
• No device or pharmacokinetics chapters. The contents are organised by transport type and approach, with no chapters on pharmacokinetics, extracorporeal devices or tissue-engineered systems as such; readers wanting those applications should look to a text organised around them.

Where It Fits in the Course

Roselli and Diller treats fluid, heat and mass transport in parallel for biological systems, and is built around a stated teaching framework, HPL. Fournier's Basic Transport Phenomena in Biomedical Engineering is the alternative that follows momentum and mass transport toward pharmacokinetics, extracorporeal devices, tissue engineering and bioartificial organs; choose it for a device-oriented course, and Roselli and Diller if heat transfer is needed or if the course is built on balances and challenge problems.

Bird, Stewart, Lightfoot and Klingenberg's Introductory Transport Phenomena develops momentum, heat and mass transfer in parallel for a general chemical-engineering first course. Rubenstein, Yin and Frame's Biofluid Mechanics teaches fluid mechanics and transport through the circulation, and is the fuller choice for readers whose interest is the fluid side. Friedman's Principles and Models of Biological Transport and Truskey, Yuan and Katz's Transport Phenomena in Biological Systems are the more specialised follow-ups: membrane and cell transport in the first, and a quantitative bridge between transport theory and physiology in the second.

How to Use This Book

The book is for undergraduates in biomedical, chemical and mechanical engineering taking a biotransport or transport course, and for first-year graduate students who want a structured review. The site's listed preparation is calculus through partial differential equations, introductory physiology and a first course in thermodynamics or physical chemistry; the publisher itself describes the audience as introductory-level bioengineering students.

For a one-semester course, read Chapter 1 for the framework, then Chapters 2–3 as the foundation. Pick the transport block that matches the course (fluid for a biofluid-focused course, heat, or mass) and take its fundamentals and macroscopic chapters first; the shell-balance chapters follow, and the general microscopic chapter closes each block, so how far to go depends on the mathematical level of the course. Work the example problems with their solutions before the end-of-chapter problems, and use the challenge problems for team work or projects.