Removal mechanism of Hydroides fouling on high-strength steel in the marine environment during nanosecond pulsed laser cleaning

The surface of metal materials will be contaminated by marine organisms when serving in the marine environment, which seriously affects the service life of the materials, and must be cleaned regularly. The Hydroides fouling on the surface of 30Cr3 high-strength steel was taken as the object to be cleaned; the cleaning quality at different laser fluences was studied; the desorption behavior and the characteristics of spectral and acoustic signals during laser cleaning were analyzed; and the removal mechanism of Hydroides fouling on the surface of high-strength steel was summarized. The results show that the cleaning effect of nanosecond pulsed laser on Hydroides fouling increases with the increase of laser fluence, and the laser fluence of 9.95 J/cm2 can be used to clean the Hydroides fouling with the maximum diameter of 1.62 mm completely with little damage to the substrate. The removal mechanism of Hydroides fouling is the inverse bremsstrahlung mechanism. In the process of cleaning, the surface fouling is partially vaporized and ionized into high-temperature plasma under the action of pulsed laser. The laser energy is absorbed through inverse bremsstrahlung absorption to form shock waves to compress the surface, which leads to cracks on Hydroides fouling. When the surface compressive stress is released, the Hydroides fouling is removed from the surface, and the removal effect increases with the increase of laser fluence.