There are many types of material treatments, that are often used in wide variety of

industries, depending on which method is most suitable for certain industry. Many kinds
of traditional methods are still very important and necessary but nowadays, there are,
increasingly in use, methods that make some process easier, faster and cheaper.

Water jet cutting represents unconventional metal treatment process, based on mechanical
wasting of material. Water jet cutter is an industrial instrument that uses a very high-
pressure of waterjet in order to cut different material types. Specific type of jet, usually
called abrasive jet, which is specialized in hard-materials cutting such as stainless steel or
aluminium alloys, plastic, glass, stone (up to 150 mm thick) etc., uses water and an
abrasive substance mixture. There is also a type of jet, known as water-only cutting or
pure waterjet, that usually cuts softer materials, such as rubber or wood.

This metal treatement process is frequently used in order to fabricate some specific parts
of machines. It is one of the favorite methods, when the materials are sensible to the high
temperatures, because influence of this method is very positive regarding material
characteristics. Different industries, such as aerospace, mining and others, use this
waterjet cutting in various processes, trying to improve their final products quality.

History of waterjet

In the 1800s there was in use high-pressure water for erosion with hydraulicking.
Hydraulicking represents a form of mining with high-pressure jets of water for sediment
moving. This type of material treatement originated out of antique Roman technics that
used water to dig up soft underground sediment. In the 1930s jets of water began to
appear in the processes of industrial cutting. In 1933, the Paper Patents Company in
Wisconsin deployed a machine for metering, cutting and reeling of paper. This machine
utilized diagonally moving waterjet sprinkle in order to cut a horizontally moving sheet
of continual paper. Fact that it was limited on a low pressure and tender materials,
represented bad characteristic or defect of this device.

Later, in the post-war era, thanks to very detailed researches around the world in order to
find some new methods for improvement of cutting efficience, waterjet technology
evolved a lot. That was a key period for this technology to truly took form. In 1956, Carl
Johnson of Durox International in Luxembourg deployed a method for cutting plastic
forms using a thin stream high-pressure waterjet, but those materials, like paper, were
tender materials. There was still no progress regarding material types. In 1958, Billie
Schwacha of North American Aviation developed a system using ultra-high-pressure
(100,000 psi, 6,900 bar) fluid to cut solid materials, especially aerospace metals. This
model tried to deliver a highly supersonic fluid jet that could cut alloys of high strength
such as PH15-7-MO stainless steel. This method of cutting, applied on the Mach 3 North
American XB-70 Valkyrie, resulted in splitting at high speed, so this required changes to
the process of manufacturing. Although, it was not very useful for XB-70, this system,
generally, was passable and engineers continued with further researches in order to
continue with improvement of waterjet cutting. Also, in the 1950s, John Parsons
deployed Numerical Control (NC) system. In 1962, Philip Rice of Union Carbide
investigated using a pulsing waterjet at up to 50,000 psi (340 MPa) to cut stone, metals
and other materials. In the mid-1960s S.J. Leach and G.L. Walker did a research that
expanded on a traditionary charcoal waterjet cutting to define ideal sprinkler form for
high-pressure waterjet cutting of stone. Then, in the late 1960s, Norman Franz
concentrated on on waterjet cutting of soft materials. He tried to dissolve long chain
polymers in the water to meliorate the jet flow cohesiveness. In the early 1970s Ray
Chadwick, Michael Kurko, and Joseph Corriveau of the Bendix Corporation had a big
desire to improve the waterjet nozzle fastness, so they decided to start with using
corundum crystal to form a waterjet hole. At the same time, Norman Franz succeeded to
create a waterjet nozzle with a hole as small as 0.002 inches (0.051 mm). That hole
operated at pressures up to 70,000 psi (480 MPa). With recognition of commercial
potential of the waterjet, John Olsen, along with George Hurlburt and Louis Kapcsandy at
Flow Research, showed that treating the water before process, could enhance the nozzle
operating life.

Abrasive waterjet

Unlike common waterjet, waterjet with the addition of an abrasive, becomes modern
machining instrument for all types of materials. Everything began in 1935, when Elmo
Smith developed an idea of adding an abrasive to the stream of water for the fluid
abrasive blasting. Later, in 1937, Leslie Tirrell of the Hydroblast Corporation adapted
Smith’s design, that resulted with making a nozzle design with a mix of high-pressure
water and abrasive for the wet blasting purpose. Dr. Mohamed Hashish in the 1982 BHR
proceedings, published first modern Abrasive Waterjets (AWJ) cutting publications. That
publications, for the first time, showed that this type of waterjets with abrasive additions,
even if addtions are small, can be used for hard materials cutting such as steel, stone etc.
More informations about this topic, people saw in the March 1984 issue of the
Mechanical Engineering magazine, and dr. Mohamed Hashish won an award for AWJ in
1987. With his team, dr. Hashish became very successfull, because they continued with
developing and improving of this technology. However, some things were pretty difficult
to realize. One of the most dificult and critical developments was making a persistent
mixing tube that could withstand the high-pressure AWJ power. Success in this,
accomplished Boride Products with their development of ROCTEC line of composite
tubes made from ceramic tungsten carbide. They notably enhanced the AWJ operational
lifetime. Currently, micro abrasive waterjet is in function, so cutting with jets that are
smaller than 0.015 inches (0.38 mm) in diameter, can bring a lot of benefits and easily be
commercialized. The first practical resources production for titanium sheets cutting was
accomplished by Michael Dixon, working with Ingersoll-Rand Waterjet Systems. This
system of abrasive waterjet is analogous with systems that are very popular and in
widespread use today.

Waterjet control

With moving into traditionary manufacturing stores, it became very important and
significant to control the cutter precisely. Running G-code, mechanical pantographs and
CNC systems are traditional systems that were adapted by early waterjet cutting systems.
That period was a period when all defects of this tradiotional G-code were discovered,
because exactitude depends on varying the nozzle speed. So, the next challenge for the
inovators in the early 1990s was to create motion control systems in order to incorporate
all necessary variables. That was a period of establishing "OMAX corporation" with dr.
John Olsen, who achieved big success with developing and patenting motion control
systems to accurately locate the stream of waterjet. He also found the way to specify the
velocity at every point down the path and to use common PCs as a checker. With this
patent, dr. John Olsen, became very successfull because "Flow International", the
worldwide famous and largest waterjet producer, licensed the OMAX software. They
wanted to have fast, precise and simple to use machines so they recognized really big
value of that system and decided to utilize it.

Operation

Basic principle of all waterjets is to use high pressure water which is focused into a beam
by a nozzle. There are two categories of pumps utilized to create this high pressure; an
intensifier pump and a direct drive pump. A direct drive pump works like a motor of the
car. It forces water through high pressure tubing using pistons attached to a crankshaft.
An intensifier pump makes pressure by using hydraulic oil to move a plunger forcing the
water through a tiny hole. The pump produces a flow of pressurized water for the cutting
process. The water then travels along the high pressure tubing to the waterjet nozzle. In
the nozzle, the water is focused into a thin beam by a jewel opening. There is cutting
through the material by spraying it with the jet of high-speed water, so this water beam is
throwed out from the nozzle.This operation is the same for abrasive waterjets until the
water reches the nozzle.The difference is that, in this process, abrasives are fed into the
nozzle via an abrasive inlet.There is a mixing tube and the water then, starts to mix with
the abrasive. At the end, is forced out at high pressure.

Advantages

Like any other popular and widespread process, waterjet cutting has a lot of advantages.
-One of the largest benefits of this type of material treatement is quality of waterjet’s
inherent cold cutting because it means that materials that would be burned or melted by
other methods of cutting, are capable to cut just with this simple method .

-Another big waterjet cutting benefit is waterjet’s capcity to cut reflective materials, fiber-
reinforced materials, uneven surfaces and stacked layers of different materials. Surface
finish of the material is not a critical factor because processes take place on a microscopic
level

-Also, materials cut with water jet machines are not susceptible to certain thermal
stresses, because some thermal processes cause undesirable effects such as surface
hardening and dangerous gasses emission.

-Part deformation is evaded and high cutting exactness is achieved without leaving any
frayed edges or burrs. This produces excellent edge quality so there is no need for
secondary processing.

-With this tecnology is possible to cut almost any shape of the material, in particular
complex shapes, so we can got slopes, small holes, sharp corners, and shapes with
minimal interior radius.

-Unlike many traditional cutting instruments, waterjet cutting is very fast because some
materials such as food products, thin plastics etc. can be cut at speeds of several hundred
feet per minute..

-It is ecologically friendly because there is no need for cutting oils or emulsions and
normally, the process is pretty clean.

-Benfit of of waterjet cutting is also capacity to cut in any direction.

-It saves raw materials so there is increasing of cost-effectiveness.

-It is practically convenient for any type of material.

-There is no dangeorus gases and dust

-Cutting is stress-free.

Process

There are six basic process that are characteristics to waterjet cutting:

- Uses a high spead stream of Ultra High Pressure Water 30,000–90,000 psi (210–620
MPa). That velocity is produced by a high pressure pump.

- On most cuts it produces a taper of less than 1 degree.

-Distance between nozzle and workpiece is very important for the removal rate of
material.

-It is utilized for machining a large number and different types of materials, such as very
hard or heat -sensitive materials.

-There is no heat damage.

-Nozzles are generally made of composite tungsten carbide or sintered boride.