In recent years, with the rapid development of science and technology, the traditional industrial cleaning technology has been unable to meet the current requirements of high efficiency and high cleanliness standards. With the mature development of laser technology, many research institutions and researchers have begun to vigorously study the application of laser cleaning technology in the cleaning of various material surfaces, and through various practical application evaluations, they have also achieved good cleaning effects, opening up a new way for the popularization and application of industrial laser cleaning in all walks of life.

The laser cleaning technology was once known as the "leader" cleaning process. Although this new and high technology has not been available for long, it has been praised by customers and enterprises with its unique technical advantages and high-quality operation performance. In recent years, the laser cleaning technology has been widely used in the following five mainstream laser cleaning applications.

1. Power industry

1.1 Removal of foreign matters in transmission lines

Due to the long transmission distance of some transmission lines and the complex environment of the area they pass through, it is inevitable that there will be debris attached to the transmission lines, such as bird droppings, kite strands, plastic bags, etc., which not only affects the stability of power transmission, but also has serious potential safety hazards; The traditional cleaning method is to manually clean the high voltage power tower after the maintenance personnel climb it after power failure. For peak power consumption areas, power failure will cause large economic losses, and manual operation is not safe.

In recent years, the combination of laser cleaning module and UAV is more common, which is to use the advantages of flexible manipulation of displacement of UAV and good directivity of laser beam to realize the cleaning operation of remote laser ablation to remove impurities. This kind of laser cleaning method will not damage the material matrix of electric lines and other power equipment, and has a good removal effect on pollutants with complex components, and can also achieve point-to-point operation, The cleaning efficiency is higher.

1.2 Cleaning of insulator and isolating knife

Insulators are widely used insulation devices in the power industry and important components of current carrying conductors. With the extension of daily service life, pollutants such as dust in the environment will constantly adhere to the surface of insulators, which will degrade their insulation performance, and may lead to circuit flashover accidents in serious cases. The two-dimensional galvanometer scanning system based on the laser cleaning equipment can achieve the precise removal of pollutants on the insulator surface, which is much safer and more reliable than the manual brush and water jet cleaning methods.

For the isolating knife switch, its surface is prone to rust and oxidation after long-term exposure to the air, which will greatly increase the power transmission loss. The use of laser cleaning technology can remove the metal oxide impurities on the surface in a short time, and achieve more efficient cleaning operations on the premise of ensuring the safety of personnel.

2. Aerospace industry

2.1 Laser cleaning and paint removal of aircraft shell surface

Due to the numerous flights of commercial passenger aircraft, the abrasion of the fuselage protective layer also increases. As the paint may age, crack or even fall off, the original paint layer needs to be cleaned and re coated regularly. Traditional mechanical cleaning of surface paint has low efficiency, great damage to material matrix, and excessive environmental pollution caused by chemical cleaning; In contrast, the laser cleaning technology can selectively remove the old paint while retaining the primer through conditional laser power and galvanometer operating frequency, with high paint removal efficiency and little environmental pollution.

2.2 Maintenance and remanufacture of aeroengine blades

The surface of aeroengine turbine blades is provided with thermal barrier coatings to improve their high temperature resistance in extreme environments. However, if they are used for a long time, they will inevitably fall off or fail. Because the thermal barrier coatings are mainly composed of super alloy bonding layers and zirconia ceramic surfaces, and the bonding strength between the coating and the substrate is very high, it is difficult to quickly remove them by traditional methods. The cleaning and remanufacturing of aeroengine guide vanes by pulsed laser cleaning technology can not only achieve accurate and efficient removal of old coatings in selected areas of engine blades, but also have little damage to the substrate. After laser cleaning, the guide vane can be directly re equipped and used with thermal barrier coating, effectively reducing the production cost and resource waste in this link.

3. The ancient relics protection

Due to its long history, the surface of ancient relics is attached with pollutants that are difficult to remove. The aging layer on the surface of valuable cultural relics (bronzes, gold and silver articles, etc.) has lost its original mechanical strength and elasticity. The traditional cleaning method is very easy to scratch the surface of cultural relics. At present, laser cleaning is widely used in the industry to replace the traditional method. Generally, YAG lasers with different parameters are selected to absorb different types of pollutants on the metal surface and thus fall off from the matrix. The matrix itself will not absorb the energy of the laser and will not damage the materials of the cultural relics matrix. Effectively restore the original luster and texture of the cultural relics.

4. Metal paint removal and rust removal

At present, the application of laser cleaning in this field belongs to the current hot spot of cleaning production. By selecting a laser with appropriate parameters, the structure of metal material surface will be changed and a layer of oxide will be produced after laser rust removal. The oxide can prevent the material itself from further rusting, which not only achieves the cleaning effect but also further extends the metal life. It can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

It is worth noting that in the production of new energy lithium batteries, the cleaning industry market for positive and negative battery electrodes which are both metal materials is becoming increasingly popular. In the manufacturing process of lithium battery, the coating of the area to be welded needs to be cleaned before welding the electrode lug. The traditional mechanical scraper scraping paste area and laser cleaning+dust-free cloth wiping all need to be stopped regularly to replace consumables. At the same time, the abrasion of the scraper is also easy to damage the electrode substrate, reducing the cleaning accuracy and product yield.

In view of the above processing pain points, Chinese laser enterprises have achieved this technological breakthrough in recent years - HGLASER has successfully captured the critical parameter values of foil damage and coating residue free, thus realizing rapid burning and melting of active substances on the positive and negative electrodes of lithium batteries, exposing the conductive collector in the middle (see the figure below), This new type of laser process causes almost negligible losses to the conductive collector fluid and the matrix material. In addition, the pure laser cleaning method can deal with products with different cleaning sizes, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Sample Drawing of HGLASER Positive and Negative Electrode Laser Cleaning

5. Industrial production mold surface decontamination

The laser cleaning technology also plays an irreplaceable role in the mold production industry. For example, the rubber tire mold has a large amount of pollutants deposited on its surface due to its long service life, which has a huge impact on the production accuracy. This kind of mold generally has many fine lines and multiple corners. Traditional brushing and cleaning is difficult to completely remove. The use of laser technology can "green" clean the tire mold surface, It will not damage the imprint marks of the original mold, and can be cleaned repeatedly before being put into production.

At present, laser cleaning technology is also widely used in metal mold and other container production industries. Relatively speaking, enterprises with higher requirements for production fineness have stricter requirements for mold cleaning. Therefore, most of them also use laser cleaning technology for cleaning operations.

At present, the cooperation between HGLASER and many Chinese laser enterprise giants is increasingly close, and the laser cleaning equipment produced by HGLASER also has a number of independently innovated product technology patents in the world. It is believed that in the near future, we will also be able to push the laser cleaning technology to the world's leading level.

About HGTECH: HGTECH is the pioneer and leader of laser industrial application in China, and the authoritative provider of global laser processing solutions. We have comprehensively arranged laser intelligent equipment, measurement and automation production lines, and smart factory construction to provide overall solutions for intelligent manufacturing.