Water Jet Machining is a process of removing material using a stream of pressurized water through a nozzle.
It is a true cold cutting process. There are no heat affected zones, mechanical stresses and operator or environmental hazards.
Working Principle: As the stream of high pressure and high velocity waterjet strikes on the surface of workpiece, material is removed due to erosion.
The kinetic energy of water jet after striking the workpiece surface becomes zero.
Sometimes to get desired fluid properties, alcohol and glycerol are used.
Construction:
- Hydraulic Pump
- Intensifier
- Sapphire Nozzle
- Filter
- Drain
- Accumulator
Work Materials:
- Soft Metals
- Paper
- Cloth
- Wood
- Leather
- Rubber
- Plastic
- Frozen food
Material of thickness 0.8 to 0.25 mm or more can be machined. If work material is brittle, it will fracture and if the work material is ductile, it will cut well.
Nozzle Material: Synthetic Sapphire
Applications:
- Machining or cutting of fiber reinforce plastics
- Cutting of rocks
- Deburring
- Cutting of printed circuit board
- Surface treatments
- Wire stripping
Advantages:
- Multidirectional Cutting capacity
- No heat is produced
- Simple operation
- Minimum burr is produced
- More accurate cutting of soft materials
- Ideal for laser reflective materials such as copper
- Ideal for roughing out material for neat shape
- Multiple head processing
Limitations:
- More cutting time
- High initial cost
- High maintenance
- Orifice failure
- Not suitable for mass production
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