Ablation ( la, ablatio – removal) is removal or destruction of something from an object by
vaporization, chipping,
erosive processes or by other means. Examples of ablative materials are described below, and include
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, ...
material for ascent and
atmospheric reentry, ice and snow in
glaciology
Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or more generally ice and natural phenomena that involve ice.
Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, c ...
, biological tissues in
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
and
passive fire protection
Passive fire protection (PFP) is components or systems of a building or structure that slows or impedes the spread of the effects of fire or smoke without system activation, and usually without movement. Examples of passive systems include floo ...
materials.
Artificial intelligence
In
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...
(AI), especially
machine learning,
ablation is the removal of a component of an AI system. The term is by analogy with biology: removal of components of an organism.
Biology
Biological ablation is the removal of a biological structure or functionality.
Genetic ablation is another term for
gene silencing, in which
gene expression is abolished through the alteration or deletion of
genetic sequence information. In cell ablation, individual cells in a population or culture are destroyed or removed. Both can be used as experimental tools, as in
loss-of-function
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosi ...
experiments.
Electro-ablation
Electro-ablation, is a process that removes material from a metallic workpiece to reduce
surface roughness.
Electro-ablation breaks through highly resistive oxide surfaces, such as those found on Titanium and other exotic metals and alloys without melting the underlying non-oxidised metal or alloy. This allows very quick surface finishing
The process is capable of providing surface finishing for a wide range of exotic and widely used metals and alloys, including: titanium, stainless steel, niobium, chromium–cobalt,
Inconel, aluminium, and a range of widely available steels and alloys.
Electro-ablation is very effective at achieving high levels of surface finishing in holes, valleys and hidden or internal surfaces on metallic workpieces (parts).
The process is particularly applicable to components produced by additive manufacturing process, such as 3D-printed metals. These components tend to be produced with roughness levels well above 5–20 micron. Electro-ablation can be used to quickly reduce the surface roughness to less than 0.8 micron, allowing the post-process to be used for volume production surface finishing.
Glaciology
In glaciology and
meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
, ablation—the opposite of accumulation—refers to all processes that remove snow, ice, or water from a glacier or snowfield. Ablation refers to the melting of snow or ice that runs off the glacier,
evaporation,
sublimation,
calving, or erosive removal of snow by wind. Air temperature is typically the dominant control of ablation, with precipitation exercising secondary control. In a temperate climate during ablation season, ablation rates typically average around 2 mm/h. Where solar radiation is the dominant cause of snow ablation (e.g., if air temperatures are low under clear skies), characteristic ablation textures such as
suncups and
penitentes Penitente or penitentes may refer to
* Penitente or penitent, any (typically Catholic) practitioner of ritual penance
** A member of the Penitente Brotherhood, a lay confraternity of Catholics in New Mexico
** A member of any historical penitent or ...
may develop on the snow surface.
Ablation can refer either to the processes removing ice and snow or to the quantity of ice and snow removed.
Debris-covered glaciers have also been shown to greatly impact the ablation process. There is a thin debris layer that can be located on the top of glaciers that intensifies the ablation process below the ice. The debris-covered parts of a glacier that is experiencing ablation are sectioned into three categories which include ice cliffs, ponds, and debris. These three sections allow scientists to measure the heat digested by the debris-covered area and is calculated. The calculations are dependent on the area and net absorbed heat amounts in regards to the entire debris-covered zones. These types of calculations are done to various glaciers to understand and analyze future patterns of melting.
Moraine (glacial debris) is moved by natural processes that allow for down-slope movement of materials on the glacier body. It is noted that if the slope of a glacier is too high then the debris will continue to move along the glacier to a further location. The sizes and locations of glaciers vary around the world, so depending on the climate and physical geography the varieties of debris can differ. The size and magnitude of the debris is dependent on the area of glacier and can vary from dust-size fragments to blocks as large as a house.
There have been many experiments done to demonstrate the effect of debris on the surface of glaciers. Yoshiyuki Fujii, a professor at the
National Institute of Polar Research
is the Japanese research institute for Antarctica. This agency manages several research bases on Antarctica.
Research centers
The NIPR has several research centers on Antarctica topics. Among others there are meteorological, geological, glac ...
designed an experiment that showed ablation rate was accelerated under a thin debris layer and was retarded under a thick one as compared with that of a natural snow surface. This science is significant due to the importance of long-term availability of water resources and assess glacier response to
climate change. Natural resource availability is a major drive behind research conducted in regards to the ablation process and overall study of glaciers.
Laser ablation
Laser ablation is greatly affected by the nature of the material and its ability to absorb energy, therefore the wavelength of the ablation laser should have a minimum absorption depth. While these lasers can average a low power, they can offer peak intensity and fluence given by:
:
while the peak power is
:
Surface ablation of the
cornea for several types of eye
refractive surgery is now common, using an
excimer laser system (
LASIK
LASIK or Lasik (''laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis''), commonly referred to as laser eye surgery or laser vision correction, is a type of refractive surgery for the correction of myopia, hyperopia, and an actual cure for astigmatism (eye), ...
and
LASEK). Since the cornea does not grow back, laser is used to remodel the cornea
refractive properties to correct
refraction errors, such as
astigmatism,
myopia, and
hyperopia. Laser ablation is also used to remove part of the
uterine wall in women with
menstruation and
adenomyosis problems in a process called
endometrial ablation.
Recently, researchers have demonstrated a successful technique for ablating subsurface tumors with minimal thermal damage to surrounding healthy tissue, by using a focused laser beam from an ultra-short pulse diode laser source.
Marine surface coatings
Antifouling paints and other related coatings are routinely used to prevent the buildup of
microorganisms and other animals, such as
barnacles for the bottom hull surfaces of recreational, commercial and military sea vessels. Ablative paints are often utilized for this purpose to prevent the dilution or deactivation of the antifouling agent. Over time, the paint will slowly decompose in the water, exposing fresh antifouling compounds on the surface. Engineering the antifouling agents and the ablation rate can produce long-lived protection from the deleterious effects of biofouling.
In medicine
In medicine, ablation is the removal of a part of
biological tissue, usually by
surgery
Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pa ...
. Surface ablation of the
skin (
dermabrasion
Dermabrasion is a type of surgical skin planing, generally with the goal of removing acne, scarring and other skin or tissue irregularities, typically performed in a professional medical setting by a dermatologist or plastic surgeon trained speci ...
, also called resurfacing because it induces
regeneration) can be carried out by chemicals (chemoablation), by lasers (
laser ablation), by freezing (
cryoablation
Cryoablation is a process that uses extreme cold to destroy tissue. Cryoablation is performed using hollow needles (cryoprobes) through which cooled, thermally conductive, fluids are circulated. Cryoprobes are positioned adjacent to the target in ...
), or by electricity (
fulguration). Its purpose is to remove skin spots,
aged skin,
wrinkles, thus
rejuvenating it. Surface ablation is also employed in
otolaryngology for several kinds of surgery, such as the one for
snoring
Snoring is the vibration of respiratory structures and the resulting sound due to obstructed air movement during breathing while sleeping. The sound may be soft or loud and unpleasant. Snoring during sleep may be a sign, or first alarm, of ob ...
.
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a method of removing aberrant tissue from within the body via minimally invasive procedures, it is used to cure a variety of cardiac arrhythmia such as
supraventricular tachycardia,
Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome (WPW),
ventricular tachycardia, and more recently as
management of atrial fibrillation. The term is often used in the context of
laser ablation, a process in which a
laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
dissolves a material's
molecular bonds. For a laser to ablate tissues, the power density or
fluence must be high, otherwise thermocoagulation occurs, which is simply thermal vaporization of the tissues.
Rotablation is a type of arterial cleansing that consists of inserting a tiny, diamond-tipped, drill-like device into the affected artery to remove fatty deposits or plaque. The procedure is used in the treatment of
coronary heart disease to restore blood flow.
Microwave ablation (MWA) is similar to RFA but at higher frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.
High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation removes tissue from within the body noninvasively.
Bone marrow ablation is a process whereby the human bone marrow cells are eliminated in preparation for a
bone marrow transplant. This is performed using high-intensity
chemotherapy
Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemother ...
and
total body irradiation Total body irradiation (TBI) is a form of radiotherapy used primarily as part of the preparative regimen for haematopoietic stem cell (or bone marrow) transplantation. As the name implies, TBI involves irradiation of the entire body, though in mode ...
. As such, it has nothing to do with the vaporization techniques described in the rest of this article.
Ablation of brain tissue is used for treating certain
neurological disorders, particularly
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms beco ...
, and sometimes for
psychiatric disorders as well.
Recently, some researchers reported successful results with genetic ablation. In particular, genetic ablation is potentially a much more efficient method of removing unwanted cells, such as
tumor
A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...
cells, because large numbers of animals lacking specific cells could be generated. Genetically ablated lines can be maintained for a prolonged period of time and shared within the research community. Researchers at Columbia University report of reconstituted
caspases
Caspases (cysteine-aspartic proteases, cysteine aspartases or cysteine-dependent aspartate-directed proteases) are a family of protease enzymes playing essential roles in programmed cell death. They are named caspases due to their specific cystei ...
combined from ''
C. elegans
''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' (r ...
'' and humans, which maintain a high degree of target specificity. The genetic ablation techniques described could prove useful in battling cancer.
Passive fire protection
Firestopping and
fireproofing products can be ablative in nature. This can mean
endothermic
In thermochemistry, an endothermic process () is any thermodynamic process with an increase in the enthalpy (or internal energy ) of the system.Oxtoby, D. W; Gillis, H.P., Butler, L. J. (2015).''Principle of Modern Chemistry'', Brooks Cole. ...
materials, or merely materials that are sacrificial and become "spent" over time while exposed to
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...
, such as
silicone firestop products.
Given sufficient time under fire or heat conditions, these products char away, crumble, and disappear. The idea is to put enough of this material in the way of the fire that a level of
fire-resistance rating can be maintained, as demonstrated in a
fire test. Ablative materials usually have a large concentration of organic matter that is reduced by fire to ashes. In the case of silicone, organic
rubber surrounds very finely divided
silica
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is ...
dust (up to 380 m² of combined surface area of all the dust particles per gram of this dust). When the organic rubber is exposed to fire, it burns to ash and leaves behind the silica dust with which the product started.
Protoplanetary disk ablation
Protoplanetary disks
A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, be ...
are rotating
circumstellar disks
A circumstellar disc (or circumstellar disk) is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accretion disk of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids, or collision fragments in orbit around a star. Around the youngest stars, they are the reser ...
of dense gas and dust surrounding
young, newly formed stars. Shortly after
star formation, stars often have leftover surrounding material that is still gravitationally bound to them, forming primitive disks that orbit around the star's equator – not too dissimilarly from
the rings of Saturn
''The Rings of Saturn'' (german: Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt - An English Pilgrimage) is a 1995 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the a ...
. This occurs because the decrease in the
protostellar material’s radius during formation increases
angular momentum
In physics, angular momentum (rarely, moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a conserved quantity—the total angular momentum of a closed syst ...
, which means that this remaining material gets whipped into a flattened circumstellar disk around the star. This circumstellar disk may eventually mature into what is referred to as a protoplanetary disk: a disk of gas, dust, ice and other materials from which
planetary systems
A planetary system is a set of gravitationally bound non- stellar objects in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although such systems may also consi ...
may form. In these disks, orbiting matter starts to accrete in the colder mid-plane of the disk from dust grains and ices sticking together. These small accretions grow from pebbles to rocks to early baby planets, called
planetesimals
Planetesimals are solid objects thought to exist in protoplanetary disks and debris disks. Per the Chamberlin–Moulton planetesimal hypothesis, they are believed to form out of cosmic dust grains. Believed to have formed in the Solar System ab ...
, then
protoplanets, and eventually, full
planets.
As it is believed that
massive stars may play a role in actively triggering star formation (by introducing gravitational instabilities amongst other factors), it is plausible that young, smaller stars with disks may be living relatively nearby to older, more massive stars. This has already been confirmed through
observations to be the case in certain
clusters, e.g. in the
Trapezium cluster
The Trapezium or Orion Trapezium Cluster, also known by its Bayer designation of Theta1 Orionis, is a tight open cluster of stars in the heart of the Orion Nebula, in the constellation of Orion. It was discovered by Galileo Galilei. On 4 Februa ...
. Since massive stars tend to collapse through
supernovae at the end of their lives, research is now investigating what role the
shockwave of such an explosion, and the resulting
supernova remnant (SNR), would play if it occurred in the line of fire of a protoplanetary disk. According to computationally modelled simulations, a SNR striking a protoplanetary disk would result in significant ablation of the disk, and this ablation would strip a significant amount of protoplanetary material from the disk – but not necessarily destroy the disk entirely. This is an important point because a disk that survives such an interaction with sufficient material leftover to form a planetary system may inherit an altered
disk chemistry from the SNR, which could have effects on the planetary systems that later form.
Spaceflight
In
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, ...
design, ablation is used to both cool and protect mechanical parts and/or payloads that would otherwise be damaged by extremely high temperatures. Two principal applications are
heat shields for spacecraft entering a
planetary atmosphere from space and cooling of
rocket engine nozzles. Examples include the
Apollo Command Module that protected astronauts from the
heat
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is ...
of
atmospheric reentry and the
Kestrel second stage rocket engine designed for exclusive use in an environment of
space vacuum since no
heat convection
Convection (or convective heat transfer) is the transfer of heat from one place to another due to the movement of fluid. Although often discussed as a distinct method of heat transfer, convective heat transfer involves the combined processes o ...
is possible.
In a basic sense, ablative material is designed so that instead of heat being transmitted into the structure of the spacecraft, only the outer surface of the material bears the majority of the heating effect. The outer surface chars and burns away – but quite slowly, only gradually exposing new fresh protective material beneath. The heat is carried away from the spacecraft by the gases generated by the ablative process, and never penetrates the surface material, so the metallic and other sensitive structures they protect, remain at a safe temperature. As the surface burns and disperses into space, the remaining solid material continues to insulate the craft from ongoing heat and superheated gases. The thickness of the ablative layer is calculated to be sufficient to survive the heat it will encounter on its mission.
There is an entire branch of
spaceflight research involving the search for new
fireproofing materials to achieve the best ablative performance; this function is critical to protect the spacecraft occupants and payload from otherwise excessive heat loading.
[ Parker, John and C. Michael Hogan, "Techniques for Wind Tunnel assessment of Ablative Materials", NASA Ames Research Center, Technical Publication, August 1965.] The same technology is used in some
passive fire protection
Passive fire protection (PFP) is components or systems of a building or structure that slows or impedes the spread of the effects of fire or smoke without system activation, and usually without movement. Examples of passive systems include floo ...
applications, in some cases by the same vendors, who offer different versions of these
fireproofing products, some for aerospace and some for structural
fire protection
Fire protection is the study and practice of mitigating the unwanted effects of potentially destructive fires. It involves the study of the behaviour, compartmentalisation, suppression and investigation of fire and its related emergencies, as we ...
.
See also
*
Electrical ''arc'' ''flash'' burns
*
Ablative armor
Ablative armor is armor which prevents damage through the process of ablation, the removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes. In contemporary spacecraft, ablative plating is most fre ...
References
External links
{{Wiktionary, ablation
Chemical Peeling American Society for Dermatological Surgery.
Lasik Laser Eye Surgery USA Food an Drugs Administration info.
Plasma physics
Materials degradation