The Assessment of Properties for Selected Factors in Abrasive Water Jet Process

Abstract

The article presents the current conditions of abrasive water jet cutting process and factors relative to the quality of cutting surface. The main goal of research was to evaluate the assessment of the cutting depth, corrugated bottom cutting edge and roughness of the specimens depending on selected factors such as cutting speed and abrasive amount in the abrasive water jet process. Specimen were cut in four phases as a square. Main results were that the distance between water jet entering and water jet leaving is decreased with the increasing abrasive amount and by following lower cutting rates. The increasing of a cutting rate negatively effects the quality of the cut surface and the size of the distance between water jet entering and water jet leaving, because the increasing of a cutting rate increases also values of the mentioned parameters. As to the distance between water jet entering and water leaving, the abrasive amount of 200-250 g.min -1 at the rate of 50 mm.min -1 is considered to be optimal, but outside this range the influence of the abrasive amount impacts negatively, primarily on water jet entering and water jet leaving that has a direct influence on the corrugated bottom cutting edge.Keywords: surface structure, abrasive water jet, cutting process. IntroductionThe main aim of this research was to analyse the influence of selected factors to the final quality of the surface cut by the abrasive water jet. To achieve this aim it was necessary to evaluate the total cutting depth (longest beam impact), corrugated bottom cutting edge and roughness by changing the cutting speed and the amount of abrasives to be used. Also it was very necessary to choose appropriate material to suggest the suitable size and shape of specimen, to propose the process of specimen production, methodology of evaluating quality surface, to carry out measurability for the purpose of evaluating the quality of surface and to determine the model dependencies between cutting speed, amount of abrasives and final quality [1,2].