On June 9, the OFweek Laser Online Laser Cleaning Technology Seminar, hosted by the Chinese high-tech industry portal OFweek, was successfully held. The conference invites professionals from the industry's research and business sectors to focus on domestic laser cleaning technology trends and applications, and to discuss laser cleaning solutions and industry layout for technology applications, and to communicate and interact with attendees on the most cutting-edge laser cleaning technology, industry trends, application cases and solutions.
The following are the highlights of the presentations given by the participants
Professor Yao, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, School of Precision Instruments, Tianjin University
Talking about the future direction of laser cleaning from intelligent manufacturing
Professor Yao shared his views on the future direction of laser cleaning from the perspective of intelligent manufacturing. He firstly introduced that nowadays we have entered a new era of intelligent manufacturing with the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies. The manufacturing industry is the foundation of the country and the tool for the development of the country, and laser manufacturing is one of the leading and core technologies in intelligent manufacturing.
Laser cleaning has the advantages of safety, environmental protection, precision, low energy consumption, applicability and mobility. It is a photo-physical reaction resulting from the interaction between a high intensity beam, a short pulse of laser light and the contaminated layer. Laser cleaning is different from the traditional mechanical cleaning method, chemical cleaning method and ultrasonic cleaning method (wet cleaning process), it does not require any ozone-depleting CFC organic solvents, no pollution, no noise, no harm to humans and the environment, is a "green" cleaning technology.
According to Professor Yao, the decontamination range of laser cleaning abroad is very wide, ranging from thick rust layer to fine particles on the laser surface. The application of laser cleaning is currently no stranger to the developed world and has been in use for almost 30 years. The laser cleaning market in Europe and the USA is currently performing steadily but has not shown explosive growth due to limited market space, the truly large market is found in China and some emerging industrial countries. Laser cleaning can be used to clean not only organic contaminants, but also inorganic substances. In addition to molds, weapons and equipment, aircraft old paint, metal rust, spray plating process before pretreatment, etc., construction, heritage protection and national defence, household goods and household and other fields can also be applied to laser cleaning technology.
For laser cleaning of the current state of domestic development, Professor Yao says there are still some problems: first, the technology and industrialization of domestic lasers for cleaning is still a lot behind foreign manufacturers; second, there are many applications of laser cleaning process, but no mature system; third, there is not yet a guiding test methods, instruments and industry standards.
At present, the team led by Professor Yao is gathering four types of representative organisations from domestic laser manufacturers, laser cleaning technology institutes and universities, integration units and application units to jointly set up an expert committee and industry standard preparation group to guide the direction for laser cleaning technology and industry.
Dr. Ren, Associate Researcher, Institute of Laser Research, Shandong Academy of Sciences
Research on the application of laser cleaning of tyre molds
Dr. Ren, associate researcher of the laser Research Institute of Shandong Academy of Sciences, has a share in the topic of "Research on the application of laser cleaning tire mold". You are not unfamiliar with tires. The ideal cleaning conditions for tire molds include: on-line, automatic, no dead ends, no damage, no cooling. Dr. Ren introduced that compared with traditional manual grinding, dry ice cleaning and shot blasting cleaning methods, laser cleaning can prolong the service life of the mold, and automatically clean the equipment online without disassembling the mold and damaging the substrate,so as to improve the production efficiency.
Founded in 1978, the Laser Institute has set up a laser cleaning team since 2015 to carry out research and development on core laser cleaning devices, processes and equipment, and has now set up a special achievement transformation enterprise, which focuses on the promotion of laser cleaning technology and is committed to improving the technological level of China's cleaning industry. The development of laser cleaning equipment for tyre moulds was carried out through a series of process demonstrations and optimal path planning for laser cleaning of tyre molds.
In the field of laser cleaning, the company has spent six years in research and development and has finalized several series of products. Dr. Ren introduced the products and applications including solid-state lasers for cleaning, laser cleaning stand-alone machines, mobile cleaning platforms and laser cleaning solutions. The company developed a solid laser for cleaning, laser cleaning stand-alone machine to break the monopoly of foreign large energy solid cleaning laser equipment, the equipment cleaning head mass 2kg, better than foreign imported equipment, equipment parameters of domestic leading, has been carried out in rail transportation, aerospace and other fields of demonstration applications. Automatic laser cleaning equipment manufacturing for tyres, rail traffic lights industry, the development of mobile cleaning platform, has signed multiple orders with customers, highly recognized by customers; portable laser cleaning machine equipment laser power 100-300W applied to weld cleaning, local dirt removal, precision cleaning high power continuous laser cleaning machine equipment power 1000-2000W efficient removal of metal surface rust and corrosion.
