An investigation on water jet machining for hardwood floors

A computer numeric control (CNC) router equipped with ultra-high pressure abrasive water jets was used to investigate the effects of wood species (density), pressure of water jet, feeding speed of wood samples and screen mesh grade of abrasives on the quality of hardwood floors. Owing to the high operational cost during the mill trial, a statistical methodology named orthogonal array testing (OAT), which reduced the number of factor combinations and exhibited maximum coverage with a minimum number of test scenarios, was employed in this study. Through both industrial-scale trials and statistical analysis, it was concluded that the wood density of 0.70 g/cm³, the water pressure of 280 MPa, the feeding speed of 80 mm/min and the abrasive size of 100 screen mesh grades yielded the optimum combination for achieving the best quality during abrasive water jet machining on hardwood floors. Among the four factors, the water jet pressure had the most important impact on the surface quality, followed by the abrasive size, wood density and feeding speed. In addition, the results also demonstrated that OAT is a cost-effective method to be used for achieving optimal machining parameters in the mill environment.