The damage morphology of the paint layer reflects the law of laser material interaction and the mechanism of paint removal.Understanding the damage characteristics and the law of action of different beam types on the paint layer helps to select the laser for precise paint removal and improve the quality of surface treatment.To investigate the action law of different beam types on the paint layer material and the mechanism of paint removal,scanning electron microscope and 3D optical surface profiler are used to measure the variation of damage diameter,damage depth and damage morphology with energy density of aluminum alloy surface paint layer after Gaussian and flat top laser paint removal or the aluminum alloy surface.The results show that the surface paint damage area is affected by thermal ablation and thermal vibration effects under the action of Gaussian beams,and the phenomenon of paint peeling and ablation removal appears,and damage crater is smooth and regular.When the energy density is 12.37J/cm2,the damage diameter of the paint layer reaches 46.71μm and the depth reaches 10.14μm；under the action of the flat top beam,the surface paint damage area is mainly affected by the thermal vibration effect,and the damage crater shows the shape of vibration peeling removal,and the paint layer within the crater is irregularly peeling,and the profile is "jagged"；when the energy density is 12.37 J/cm2,the damage diameter reaches 612.3μmand the depth reaches 19.42μm；at the same energy density,the flat top beam peels off a larger amount of paint layer.