With the advance of laser technology in surface cleaning, manufacturers are becoming aware of the extent to which laser cleaning can help them. From the automotive and aerospace industries to more general industrial applications, many uses of this revolutionary cleaning technique are still unknown.
Best performed using a pulsed laser, laser cleaning can replace traditional cleaning methods to remove rust, oxide, paint and other contaminants from metal surfaces. Emerging applications include weld cleaning, mold cleaning, tool cleaning and surface preparation.
In this short video, you can see examples of laser cleaning applications:
The Benefits of Cleaning Without Consumables
If you’ve come to accept the shortcomings of sandblasting, chemical cleaning and other traditional methods, you will be stunned by how much you can improve the way you’re cleaning surfaces.
Avoid Damaging the Substrate
Pulsed laser beams remove contaminants with unprecedented consistency, and this, without introducing impurities in the base material or damaging it. This is a huge improvement compared to media blasting and buffing.
Blast media and brushes can indeed damage surfaces—especially soft ones. They also tend to generate inconsistent results, as they quickly deteriorate and need replacement.
Simplify Work Safety
Because no dangerous products are involved (such as chemical solvents or abrasive media), laser cleaning systems don’t need to be installed in a dedicated room where employees wear personal protective equipment.
To achieve complete safety, the laser only needs to be installed in a Class-1 laser safety enclosure and equipped with a fume extraction system.
Reduce Your Environmental Footprint
While chemicals and blast particles add up to a significant amount of waste, lasers generate none. Hence, they reduce the environmental risks related to contamination and pollution.
Decrease Costs & Maintenance
Because it’s a non-contact process and no consumables need to be replaced, laser cleaning generates low maintenance in production lines. For the same reasons, it is a cost-effective solution, as maintenance costs are low and consumables costs nonexistent.
Industrial Applications
Laser Rust Removal
Fiber laser cleaning removes rust and other corrosion-inhibiting agents with speed and precision, and this, without damaging the base metal. It is often used as a pre-treatment for welding to improve weld quality, or for coatings to prevent paint from failing over time.
Laser oxide removal is used to clean metal surfaces before many surface treatments, especially before aluminum welding. It is also used after welding to remove stainless steel oxides.
Also known as laser coating removal, this method vaporizes paint while leaving the underlying surface intact. It is used to replace part masking, clean painting tools, prepare welding areas, salvage parts with paint defects, and much more.
Laser cleaning can remove surface contaminants while leaving a slight texture that improves adhesion. This is useful if you need to prepare surfaces for a subsequent process, such as adhesive bonding or painting.
Our experts share their laser cleaning results before and after welding. You can see an innovative integration in an automated welding cell, learn the benefits of laser cleaning before and after welding, and obtain laser cleaning speeds.
Our experts compare the speed at which rust, paint, dust, oil and mill scale are typically removed at different power levels. They used our high-power fiber laser to run their tests.
To remove contaminants, laser beams are pulsed at a specific repetition rate. These short pulses generate energy levels just beyond the ablation threshold of the material to be removed.