from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
A special group of paint systems is paint coatings for military applications, mainly for camouflaging weapon systems and military equipment. Paint coatings are fundamental to camouflage - they conceal vehicles/objects in the optical range, both in visible light (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR). The main task of effective camouflage is to eliminate features that may cause the object to be differentiated from its surroundings, i.e., those that make it possible to distinguish one's own assets from the background, such as color, shape, size, gloss, and texture. Numerous research centers worldwide are involved in the study of laser surface modification. By controlling laser parameters such as the amount of power, scanning speed, and pulse duration, it is possible to form coatings with different surface properties, including surface geometry, microhardness, stress states or resistance to wear. The paper analyzes the influence of selected laser-processing parameters on the removal of paint coatings used for special applications in armaments and military equipment. By controlling the laser processing parameters, i.e., power density, feed rate, pulse frequency, and duration, the best processing conditions were selected at which masking coatings were removed. To clean the surface, laboratory tests were carried out to remove the paint coating using the surface-layer cleaning technique with a picosecond laser TruMicro 5325c emitting UV radiation (343 nm). As part of the research, measurements of the surface geometric structure, hardness, and adhesion, as well as observations of the microstructure, were made. Numerous research centers worldwide are conducting studies on laser surface modification. By controlling laser parameters such as power, scanning speed, and pulse duration, it is possible to form coatings with different surface properties, including surface geometry, microhardness, stress states, and wear resistance. The paper analyzes the influence of selected laser-processing parameters on the removal of paint coatings used for special applications in armaments and military equipment. By controlling the laser processing parameters, i.e., power density, feed rate, pulse frequency, and duration, the best processing conditions were selected at which masking coatings were removed. To clean the surface, laboratory tests were carried out to remove the paint coating using the surface-layer cleaning technique with a picosecond laser TruMicro 5325c emitting UV radiation (343 nm). As part of the research, measurements of the surface geometric structure, hardness, and adhesion, as well as observations of the microstructure, were made.
Keywords: mask coating, laser processing, properties, military armament and equipment© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.