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Abrasive Water Jet Cutting |
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  Abrasivejets are used by industries such as the automobile, aerospace, and glass industries, to create precision parts from hard-to-cut materials.
A water jet cutter is a tool capable of cutting into metal, glass, ceramics, natural and man made stones, rubber, plastic and other materials using a jet of water at high velocity and pressure, or a mixture of water and a abrasive substance. Because the nature of the cutting stream can be easily modified, water jet can be used to cut materials as diverse as most delicate glass and titanium. There are a few materials that can’t be effectively cut with a water jet, one of these is tempered glass, which shatters when cut regardless of the cutting technology used. An important benefit of water jet cutting that there is no heat affected zone, net-shape cutting with no hand finishing. |
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An abrasivejet pressurizes water up to 55,000 pounds per square inch (psi) [379,000 kiloPascals (kPa)] and then forces it through a small sapphire orifice at 2500 feet (762 meters) per second, or about two and half times the speed of sound.
Garnet abrasive is then pulled into this high-speed stream of water, and mixed with the water in a long ceramic mixing tube. A stream of abrasive-laden water moving at 1000 feet per second (305 meters/sec) exits the ceramic tube. This jet of water and abrasive is then directed at the material to be machined. The jet drags the abrasive through the material in a curved path and the resulting centrifugal forces press the particles against the work piece. The abrasivejet's cutting action is a grinding process, but rather than using a solid grinding wheel, the forces and motions of the cutting action are provided by water. |
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Water Jet Cutting 
This piece was made from 8” (200mm) thick aluminum as a demonstration of what an abrasivejet can do.