Chemical and mechanical engineering students at Cooper Union are involved in an interdisciplinary laser laboratory where they learn fundamental and practical aspects of laser interaction with materials involving basic phenomena in chemical and mechanical engineering. The laboratory experiments involve a medical laser to investigate aspects of laser use such as operating room fire safety. The laser laboratory experiments expose engineering undergraduates to seemingly unrelated fields, such as laser surgery, combustion science, anesthetic practice, and materials engineering. In addition to biomedical applications, the laboratory experiments demonstrate basic principles of fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, chemical kinetics, physical chemistry, and combustion. In addition to the medical laser, other equipment used in the experiments include a flow control center, a video system, and a computer system for data acquisition and control.
