Study On Laser Paint Stripping Of Aircraft Surface

Laser paint stripping of aircraft surface is one of the important branches of the technology of laser cleaning, and there is great potential market. Research is carried out for paint stripping of aircraft using high power high repetition rate TEA CO₂ laser in this paper. Systematic researches in this field are carried out on the efficiency of laser paint stripping and its influence on the mechanical characteristics of aircraft. Some valuable results are obtained.To improve the speed of laser paint stripping, the relevant factors on the efficiency of paint stripping are studied in the paper. The samples of aircraft surface are irradiated by different laser fluency with same energy and the mass of removed paint is measured respectively, it is found that there is a optimal value of the TEA CO₂ laser fluency for paint stripping which is between 6 ⁸ J/cm2 in our condition. The atmosphere around the aircraft surface is also an important factor relevant to the efficiency of laser paint stripping. When the laser fluency is more than 12 J/cm2, the air near the surface will be broken down. This process wastes most energy and decreases the efficiency of paint stripping. The efficiency of laser paint stripping can be improved dramatically when the aircraft surface is covered with water. The theoretic analysis illuminates that when the laser is not strong enough to make the air near the surface broken down, the laser fluency should be as high as possible and the pulse width should be as narrow as possible to make the paint stripping efficiently for given pulse energy. The effect of paint stripping by a high repetition rate TEA CO₂ laser on the tensile strength, endurance limit and VH and so on of the substrate is studied by the method of experimental contrast. It is found that the mechanical properties of the samples did not changed obviously after the treatment of laser paint stripping. And the technology of laser paint stripping will not bring hidden trouble to aircrafts. Based the work above, we designed a prototype system for laser paint stripping.