The principle of laser rust removal

Laser rust removal technology refers to the use of high-energy laser beams to irradiate the surface of a workpiece, causing the dirt, rust, or coating on the surface of the workpiece to evaporate or peel off instantly, and effectively remove attachments or coatings on the surface of the workpiece. Perform high-speed cleaning on the cleaned object to achieve the cleaning process. It is a new technology based on the interaction between laser and materials, which has significant advantages compared to traditional cleaning methods such as mechanical cleaning, chemical corrosion cleaning, liquid-solid impact cleaning, and high-frequency ultrasonic cleaning. Laser rust removal has high efficiency, fast speed, low cost, low thermal and mechanical loads on the substrate, and clean without damage. Waste can be recycled, free from environmental pollutants, safe and reliable, and can be exempted from obtaining a health certificate for operators. The secondary cleaning process is easy to achieve automatic control and remote cleaning.
The physical principle of laser rust removal can be summarized as follows:
1. The beam emitted by the laser is absorbed by the pollution layer on the surface to be treated.
2. Absorbing a large amount of energy to form rapidly expanding plasma (a highly ionized and unstable gas) and generating shock waves.
3. The shock wave turns pollutants into fragments and discards them.
4. The pulse width of light needs to be short enough to avoid damaging the treated surface due to heat accumulation.
5. Experiments have shown that when there are oxides present on the metal surface, plasma will be generated on the metal surface.
Compared with traditional cleaning techniques, laser rust removal technology has the following obvious advantages:
(1) Laser rust removal is a dry cleaning process that does not require cleaning solutions or other chemical solutions, and its cleanliness is much higher than that of chemical cleaning processes;
(2) Wide range of dirt cleaning, suitable for substrates;
(3) By adjusting and controlling the laser process parameters, pollutants can be effectively removed without damaging the substrate surface, resulting in a new surface;
(4) Laser rust removal can easily achieve automated operation;
(5) Laser rust removal equipment can be used for a long time with low operating costs;
(6) Laser rust removal technology is a "green" cleaning technique. The eliminated waste is solid powder, which is small in volume, easy to store, and basically does not pollute the environment.