Experimental investigations into cleaning mechanism of ship shell plant surface involved in dry laser cleaning by controlling laser power

Abstract

In order to meet the maintenance requirements of ship shell plant, the old polyurethane paint needs to be removed from the ship shell plant. The experiment of repeated cleaning on the surface of polyurethane paint ship shell plate using pulse fiber laser is conducted by the large-scale laser cleaning system which was independently developed. The mechanism of twice repeated pulse fiber laser cleaning method was clarified. In this experiment, the effect of pulsed fiber laser power on surface roughness value was studied. The surface roughness of ship shell plate under different pulsed fiber laser power was obtained. The surface topography of two-dimensional and three-dimensional ship shell plate with different laser power was measured. The results showed that process parameters changed surface topography of ship shell plant by changing laser power. The cross-section profiles of the ship shell plate surface under different laser power are obtained. It is found that the surface height of ship shell plate decreases with the increase of pulsed fiber laser power. The relationship among the pulsed fiber laser power, the surface roughness, and the surface topography was analyzed. The surface topography of ship shell plate obtained by once pulse fiber laser cleaning was compared with that obtained by twice repeated laser cleaning. The experimental results show that twice repeated laser cleaning has a very significant cleaning effect on the removal of polyurethane paint which is on the ship shell plant. The experimental results are of practical significance to the production process of pules fiber laser cleaning for ship shell plate.