Study of kerf geometry of multilayers materials in abrasive water jet cutting process

Abstract

The use of abrasive jet cutting in case of multilayers materials, shows particularities and difficulties, due to different hardness and thickness of layers. This paper studies changes, occurred in the kerf geometry at passing of abrasive particles, through layers with different hardness and aims to establish a link between hardness and thickness of the layers and kerf geometry because processing accuracy is determined by the geometry of the cut. Thus, is proposed a novel algorithm based on minimization of angle of kerf, for optimization a cutting process in abrasive water jet technology, which can be utilized for materials with different hardness in layers. Direct effect of optimization of cutting consist in increasing efficiency, dimensional precision, traverse velocity, and decreasing the amount of used abrasive garnet.