3. Strong and short power burst means faster removal

You can think of laser ablation as similar to a stone carved with a hammer and chisel, trying to carve a stone. You can use a small hammer and do many little hits on your chisel. Or you could just as well use a bigger hammer to leverage more power, hence reducing the required number of hits and increasing the removal speed. The idea is the same for laser cleaning, except that you only want to remove a layer of material: the contaminant.

There are different methods available to remove any given layer. Either the laser beam is a continuous stream of light or it is pulsed at a given duty cycle. Even if the end result is pretty much the same; the speed of the process is quite different depending on the methodology chosen.

Fig. 2 – Graph: Relation of Removal Speed to Power of Laser Beam

For a given surface area, putting the same energy in a much shorter pulse increases the power. It’s like using the bigger hammer. The pulsed laser methodology is more efficient and provides a faster removal speed than the continuous beam. While the pulsed laser beam does the cleaning faster, it also ensures that the underlying material (typically a metal) does not heat too much. See the graph above for an illustration of the differences between both processes.

4. It is consumable-free and environmentally friendly

As this method only uses a laser beam to vaporize the layer to be removed. There are literally no consumables with this cleaning technology. This is the beauty of a laser, which only needs a power plug to be set and ready to go.

On top of this, as no solvents or other chemical products are used, laser ablation is one of the safest solutions available when it comes to rust removal. Hence, there’s no chemical waste to take care of. Also, there is no danger for employees while working with the laser machine as these machines are designed to meet safety standards. If you want more information on safety standards for lasers, check out this blog post. Employees won’t need cumbersome personal protective gear and won’t have to handle those pesky chemicals. Win-win.

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