Waterjet cutting technology provides a range of advantages that entirely upgrade the effectiveness of your project, and it does so with significant cost savings, shortened timetables and uncompromising adherence to product quality, efficiency and accuracy standards. In-depth understanding of how this technology works further clarifies this. Chronologically, waterjet cutting technology has been used in industry for more than 40 years. At the outset, in the 1970s, this cutting technology focused mainly on soft materials. A decade later – with the development of abrasive cutting (water combined with eroding material) – the technology offered a solution for hard materials. Today, owing to impressive progress in this industry, waterjet cutting is the only cutting technology that can cut all industrial raw materials (read here).
The Basic Technology
The technological mechanism underlying waterjet cutting is both simple and complex simultaneously. At the most basic level a thin jet stream of water flows from a pressure pump in designated tubing and passes at a very high speed through a miniscule nozzle located in the cutting head. The high speed cuts through the raw material and creates erosion to the point of fully cutting the material. Over the years this basic technology developed into an advanced, innovative, high quality and groundbreaking technology. Nowadays, waterjet cutting machines use ultrahigh pressure pumps that reach 60,000 psi, which is equivalent to 4,500 bar (300 times the pressure of a fire extinguishing hose). The pressure generates a stream of water that flows through a tiny opening, thus creating a supersonic speed waterjet stream. It is important to note that despite the high pressure in terms of psi level, the water stream does not cut by means of the pressure but rather is converted into velocity when the water passes through the cutting head opening. The higher the pressure, the higher the corresponding water stream speed. In machines with 60,000 psi pressure pumps this water stream flows from the cutting head at the speed of 103 km/hr. The machine’s cutting head is a dynamic head with 5-axis motion that can reach an angle up to 60 degrees. The machine is also operated by dedicated software that controls the cutting process, including process monitoring and control, while performing complex cutting in order to manufacture different parts.
Pure Waterjet and Abrasive Waterjet
Waterjet cutting can be based solely on a water stream (pure waterjet) or can also include an eroding abrasive which is in fact sand combined with quartz (abrasive waterjet). The former technology is usually used to cut soft materials, while abrasive waterjet is mainly suitable for cutting hard materials.