Andrew J. Rapoff, Ph.D.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Postal Address

Union College
Mechanical Engineering
807 Union Street
Schenectady, NY  12308-3107
 

Office

219 Steinmetz Hall
518-388-8384
ME Office 518-388-6264
ME Fax 518-388-6789

Lab

201 Butterfield Hall
518-388-7087

Union College Links

Union College

Mechanical Engineering

Center for Bioengineering & Computational Biology

Committee on Teaching

Other Links

Michael A. Rapoff, Ph.D.
(He ain't heavy - or my Dad - he's my Brother.)

Metro Marble & Granite
(Dan Rapoff, General Manager)

Emily Kelahan, M.A.
(Ph.D. candidate, UNC)

Editdoc English Editing
(Document editing for non-native English speakers and writers.)

Quotes

"The secret of success is sincerity.  Once you can fake that you've got it made."

- Jean Giraudoux via Jim Sanye

"Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

- George Orwell
 

Cost of Iraq War

In Human Lives
 
 

Current Term Courses

• MER 212 Rigid Body Mechanics (lecture plus lab)
• MER 312 Dynamics and Kinematics (lecture plus design project lab)
• MER 497/498 Senior Projects

Senior & Other Student Research Projects

Please visit this page to see what a great group of students is doing and has done.

Other Term Courses

• MER 010 Senior Seminar (most recently Winter 2008)
• MER 201 Particle Mechanics (lecture plus lab; most recently Fall 2008)
• MER 213 Material Science (lecture plus lab; most recently Winter 2005)
• MER 214 Strength of Materials (lecture plus lab; most recently Fall 2006)
• MER/BIO 245 Biomimetics (Bioengineering elective; Fall 2007)
• MER 295 Honors Independent Study (most recently Fall 2006)
• MER 311 Advanced Strength of Materials (lecture plus lab; most recently Winter 2007)
• MER 419 Design of Mechanical Systems (capstone design course; most recently Spring 2007)
• MER/BIO 440 Orthopedic Biomechanics (Bioengineering elective; most recently Spring 2007)
• MER/BIO 445 Soft Tissue Mechanics (Bioengineering elective; most recently Spring 2008)

Research Opportunities

Dr. Rapoff will supervise experimental and analytical projects in the general areas of bioengineering and solid mechanics, and, in particular, bone, spine, and orthopedic mechanics; mechanics in physical anthropology, biology, and other sciences; biomedical statistics and modeling; and biomimetic structures.

"Thoroughbred Structures"

At left, I am holding an equine third metacarpus - a bone in the forearm of a horse - that contains a natural hole (a foramen), located between my thumb and index finger in the picture.  We all have a similar bone in the middle of each of our hands.  The plate in front was designed based on compositional variations discovered in the vicinity of this foramen and is twice as strong as a conventional plate design of the same weight.  This research was conducted with my collaborators Nils Götzen and Rafi Haftka and was featured on the Science Update radio program of the National Association for the Advancement of Science and on a local TV newscast.

Recent Conference Publications, Presentations & Posters

• Rapoff AJ, Bucinell RB, McGraw WS, Daegling DJ. Curved beam model of mandibular symphyseal bending including heterogeneous elasticity. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 2007;132(S44):195-6. Special Issue of the Proceedings of Annual Meeting of American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Philadelphia, PA, 25-28 April 2008. (poster)
• Rapoff AJ, Brown BW, Daegling DJ. Image-based measure of torsional stiffness of skeletal elements: incorporating tissue inhomogeneity with cross-sectional geometry and its implication for comparative biomechanics. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 2006;129(S42). Special Issue of the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Anchorage, AK, 8-12 March 2006. (presentation; poster)
• Rapoff AJ, Haftka RT. Image-based interpolation of anisotropic elastic constants. Proceedings of the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference, Vail, CO, 22-26 June 2005. (poster)
• Rapoff AJ, Hsiao A, Bucinell RB, Genovese K, Tietz AM. Preparation and rehydration effects on compressive properties of cornerstone ASR cervical spine allografts. Proceedings of the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference, Vail, CO, 22-26 June 2005.
• Rapoff AJ, Fontanel O, Venkataraman S. Heterogeneous orthotropic elasticity about a nutrient foramen via microindentation. Proceedings of the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference, Key Biscayne, FL, 25-29 June 2003.
• Garita B, Rapoff AJ. Osteon trajectories near the equine metacarpus nutrient foramen. Proceedings of the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference, Key Biscayne, FL, 25-29 June 2003.
• Garita B, Rapoff AJ. Damage about natural and drilled holes in bone. Proceedings of the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference, Key Biscayne, FL, 25-29 June 2003.
• Rapoff AJ, Rinaldi RG, Johnson WM, Venkataraman S, Daegling DJ. Heterogeneous anisotropic elastic properties in a Macaca fascicularis mandible. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 2003;120(S36):174-5. (Special Issue of the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists)

Other Professional Information

• Download my plenus Curriculum Vitae
• Find some of my papers on PubMed and find others at Web of Knowledge (subscription required)
• My NASA 2003 Faculty Fellowship Program participation page