Laser paint removal is a new cleaning technology that mainly removes paint through thermal ablation and mechanical stripping mechanisms. This paper established a thermal-mechanical coupling laser removal model of paint based on the heat conduction equation, Newton’s second law, and Fabbro’s theory. The removal process of epoxy resin paint film on an aluminum alloy surface via a nanosecond pulsed laser was studied using finite element simulations and experimental measurements. The simulation and experimental results show that the nanosecond pulse laser’s primary paint removal mechanism is the mechanical stripping caused by thermal stress and plasma shock. The laser paint removal threshold is 1.4 J/cm². In addition, due to the different generation times of plasma shock and thermal stress, the mutual superposition of stress waves occurs in the material. This results in a discrepancy between the actual and thermal stress differences. Moreover, the thermal stress difference causes the maximum actual stress difference to fluctuate. The simulation model established in this paper can provide a reference for studying the thermal-mechanical coupling process of laser paint removal.

Paint removal is an essential process in the industrial field. Laser technology provides an effective method of paint removal to replace traditional mechanical and chemical methods. This paper establishes a continuous wave (CW) laser thermal paint removal model based on heat conduction theory and Arrhenius’ law. The paint stripping process of epoxy paint film on the surface of 6061 aluminum alloy via CW laser was studied through simulation and experiment. We found that the carbonization of the paint film during the CW laser paint removal process will inhibit the laser paint removal process. Therefore, the paint removal efficiency of the CW laser is limited. The depth of CW laser paint removal increases linearly with the CW laser power density. However, during the CW laser paint removal process, due to the pyrolysis of the paint film and the reflection of the laser by the substrate, the surface temperature of the material first increases and then decreases. In addition, after laser paint removal, the surface roughness of the material after paint removal is reduced due to the melting of the base material. The model established in this article can provide a theoretical reference for studying the CW laser paint removal process.

The variation of shock-wave velocity with time induced by a millisecond-nanosecond combined pulse laser (CPL) on silicon is investigated. The convolution neural network (CNN) is used to predict the shock-wave velocity induced by a single ns laser and CPL with a ns laser energy density of 6, 12 and 24 J/cm², ms laser energy density of 0 and 226.13 J/cm², and pulse delay of 0, 0.4 and 0.8 ms. The four-layer CNN model was applied, ns laser energy density, ms laser energy density, pulse delay and time were set as the input parameter, while the shock-wave velocity was set as the output parameter. The correlation coefficient (R²), mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) of the CNN model on the test data set was 0.9865, 3.54 and 3.01, respectively. This indicated that the CNN model shows a high reliability in the prediction of CPL-induced shock-wave velocity with limited experimental data.

The propagating evolution of shock waves induced by a nanosecond pulse laser (ns laser) irradiating silicon assisted by a millisecond pulse laser (ms laser) is investigated experimentally. A numerical model of 2D axisymmetric two-phase flow is established to obtain the spatial distribution of shock wave velocity. Two types of shock wave acceleration phenomenon are found. The mechanism of the shock wave acceleration phenomenon is discussed. The experimental and numerical results show that the initial stage of ms laser-induced plasma can provide the initial ions to increase probability of collision ionization between free electrons and vapor atoms. The velocity of the ns laser-induced shock wave is accelerated. Furthermore, the ms laser-induced plasma as the propagation medium can also accelerate the ns laser-induced shock wave. The shock wave acceleration methods obtained in this paper can promote the development of laser propulsion technology.