I had it done on one of our grain store ventilated floors that had been storing oilseed rape, the oil gets in the metal grids, don't like using water in them (obviously won't get oil off very well anyway), so had it dry ice cleaned several years ago. It was amazing, got all the oil off with no mess left behind. Was very impressed.
I did some trials years ago having Gravure Printing Cylinders cleaned with it, and from that experience wouldn't put it anywhere near anything more delicate than a solid metal surface.
we used to use it to de coke cylinder heads and piston crowns, and yes, it's very effective at removing substrate.
I never even had it carried out on anything as soft as bare Aluminium. Gravure Print Cylinders are Steel with a thin layer of Nickel then a very thick layer of Copper which is polished back before the image in reverse is etched into it as a series of tiny dots, or cells. The Copper and image is then Hard chrome plated. We found the Dry ice effectively removed any residual ink from the etched surface, but also damaged the very narrow walls between the cells, so we reverted to traditional methods involving copious amounts of Solvent and elbow grease. I believe nowadays very large Ultrasonic tanks are employed as an alternative. I'm sure that like everything else, operator skill level and their understanding of the substrate being cleaned would be crucial.
