Effect of Particle Fragmentation on Cutting Performance in Abrasive Waterjets

Abrasive waterjets have become a standard tool for machining a wide variety of materials. Today’s applications of abrasive waterjet cutting can be found in many different industries that range from producing very small high precision parts to making rough separation cuts of thick steel plates. Advancements in understanding of the physics of the abrasive waterjet cutting process continues to further advance the state of the art in predictive modeling and motion control software of the abrasive waterjet cutting process. Considerable research has been devoted towards studying how the various abrasive waterjet process parameters affect one another and their influence on the final cutting results. While several approaches have evaluated the effect of hydraulic energy from the water jet itself, in this paper the focus is laid on the effect of the particles that are interacting with the material. In this paper the kinetic behavior and fragmentation of particles has been analyzed in a wide range of different conditions. New insights into fragmentation of the particles especially at higher pressures can explain the behavior of experimental cutting studies where higher pressures did not provide a significant improvement and in many cases a decrease of cutting performance. Studies like this will not only help us understand the very processes that are involved in the cutting operation but also help us to optimize the overall process to increase performance and reliability and also be competitive against other cutting methods while providing ample new applications in the future.