Miniaturization of injection abrasive water jet machining process

Abstract

This contribution presents the possibilities of applying abrasive water jet (AWJ) technology for multi-material micromanufacture. The working principles of injection and suspension AWJ systems are presented. Characteristics of this technology, such as the ability to machine virtually any kind of material and the absence of a relevant heat-affected zone, are given, especially those from which the production of microcomponents can benefit. A few attempts to miniaturize the AWJ machining process are described in the state-of-the-art preview. In order to develop and improve the AWJ as a microtool, a numerical simulation based on the finite element analysis is introduced to evaluate the effect of the size abrasive particles and the process efficiency of microsized AWJ. An ongoing project in which an improved mini AWJ cutting head is being developed, is presented. Finally, the possible fields of application are given, including a case study on the machining of miniaturized heat sinks.

Electroforming of Implantable Tubular Magnetic Microrobots for Wireless Ophthalmologic Applications

“…Fabrication of tubular microstructures has been extensively investigated for several applications such as drug delivery, biosensing, microfluidics, and 3D cell microreactors . Fabrication methods include rolling‐up processes, template‐assisted atomic layer deposition, spin forming, or water‐jet cutting . However, these methods are either time consuming or do not produce the desired geometries of required dimensions.…”

Monitoring the abrasive waterjet drilling of Inconel 718 and steel: a comparative study

“…The normal force component facilitates an indentation in the workpiece and causes deformation wear, while the tangential component promotes shearing stresses which may create microchips from the workpiece or cause a ploughing action to the surface [33]. Low-cycle fatigue was also considered as a possible mechanism of solid-particle erosion for normal impact [34]. In the AWJ drilling process, the abrasive particles impact on the hole-bottom nearly perpendicular to it.…”

Studies of Micro-Hole Burr Improvement for Aluminum Alloy Materials Using Vibrated Abrasive Grinding Machining

“…But the grinding machining likely to be artificial and size restrictions which affect the final quality of the workpiece. In contrast, the non-traditional grinding methods such as electrolysis [4], abrasive flow [5,6], abrasive-injection [7], magnetic-abrasive finishing [8,9] can be remove the micro-burrs removal effectively. However, the high cost of equipment and raw materials, and complex grinding machining which is not yet widely used for industry.…”