ABRASIVE WATER JET MACHINING ON ALUMINIUM AND COPPER

Abstract

An Abrasive Water Jet is one of the most recently developed non-traditional manufacturing processes. This technique uses jet of water which contains abrasive material. Usually, the water exits a nozzle at a very high speed and the abrasive material is injected into the jet stream. The stream along with abrasive particles impinges onto the material and does the required action of machining and cutting. Abrasive water jet offers the potential for the development of a tool which is less sensitive to material properties, has virtually no thermal effects, and imposes minimal stresses. This process was first introduced as a commercial system in 1983 for cutting of glass. Now a days, this process is being widely used for machining of hard to machine materials like ceramics, ceramic composites, fiber-reinforced composites, and titanium alloys where conventional machining is often not technically or economically feasible. The fact that it is a cold process has also important applications wher...