What is Waterjet cutting?
Waterjets cut soft materials like gaskets up to 800 inches per minute. Waterjet cutting is a rapidly growing technology because it is very versatile and easy to learn. Plain water is pressurized up to 60,000 pounds per square inch to cut soft materials like gaskets up to 800 inches per minute. By adding a fine abrasive, usually garnet sand, hard materials like Titanium or Steel can be easily cut. From Aluminum to Zinc, waterjets can cut it! Many shops have eliminated secondary processes and produce net-shaped parts with no change in the properties of what they are cuttingno heat affected zone and no mechanical stresses. The narrow kerf means that you make better use of expensive raw materials.
Waterjet cutting is the technique by which we cut the sheets of glass/ceramic into tiles, and other desired shapes. A stream of water under immense pressure, forty thousand pounds per square inch, passes through a pin size hole in a sapphire and then picks up grains of garnet which acts as an abrasive. This computer driven high pressure stream of water will cut almost any material into virtually any imaginable shape. This also allows us to do fine inlay work.
Waterjet cutting is an innovative and relatively new technology that allows for precise yet inexpensive cutting of a wide range of materials. The principle behind a waterjet is simple but nonetheless surprising. As the name implies, a jet of water is directed out of an orifice at about three times the speed of sound. The intense pressure of the narrow stream allows the water to actually cut through almost any material placed in front of it. Although waterjets can cut virtually any material, they are mostly used for flat sheets of plastic, aluminum, steel, tile and stone. Sometimes an abrasive, such as garnet or sand is added to the water to improve the cutting efficiency. Some waterjets can cut through 12″ (15cm) thick steel! There are many waterjet cutting systems available, but most include a similar set of components. The heart of the system is a pump that increases the pressure of water in a tank up to 4,200 Kg/cm2 (60,000 pounds per square inch).
Abrasive Water Jet is the technology used by Precision Waterjet to cut virtually any shape in any material. You may have heard of the terms “Waterjet” and “Abrasive jet”. Abrasive jets are not the same thing as water jets, although they are nearly the same. Water Jet technology has been around since the early 1970s or so, and abrasive jets extended the concept about 10 years later. Both technologies use the principle of pressurizing water to extremely high pressures, and allowing the water to escape through a very small opening (typically called the “orifice” or “jewel”). Water jets use the beam of water exiting the orifice (or jewel) to cut soft materials like confectionery and foam etc. but are not effective for cutting harder materials. Abrasive jets use that same beam of water to accelerate abrasive particles to speeds fast enough to cut through much harder materials.
Waterjet cutting is a computer controlled cutting process by which plain water is pressurized to 55,000 psi and forced through a Diamond Jewel (usually .010 – .015 in diameter) and a .040 Cutting Nozzle. The result is a water stream that is moving at 1700 MPH and can cut through 13 of Stainless Steel. • What is Laser Cutting? Laser cutting works by exciting a gaseous medium, commonly carbon dioxide, causing it to amplify light reflected back and forth multiple times within the laser chamber. The light emerges from an aperture and is focused by a lens onto a specific point. The resulting beam is about 1/5 of a millimeter wide.
