Waterjet Cutting Technology Deducting the Song of Ice and Fire

Do you know which method is better for cutting steel plates ? Acetylene flame cutting? Plasma arc cutting? NO, NO, NO, the correct answer is – water jet cutting machine .

The working principle of the water jet cutting machine is to make the water pressure more than 200 mpa . Under the constraint of a nozzle with a small diameter (generally greater than 0.2 mm), a high-speed “water arrow” can be formed which can be worn such as wood, leather, rubber, etc. Soft material; if the abrasive is mixed in the "water arrow",  it can wear a variety of hard materials such as rock, glass, steel and so on.  Combined with a microcomputer-controlled workbench or robot, a CNC machining system is formed to meet special or complex surface machining requirements. Water jet cutting technology is also known as ultra high pressure water jet. When the water is pressurized to a very high pressure and passes through a special nozzle small opening (diameter 0.1mm to 0.5mm), a water of up to a thousand meters per second (about three times the speed of sound) can be produced the water arrow . this high-speed water arrow can cut a variety of soft materials including food, paper, diapers, rubber and foam, this cut is called pure water cutting. When a small amount of sand, such as garnet sand added to the water jet and mixed with it, the resulting abrasive water jet can actually cut any hard material including metal, composite, stone and glass. Ultra high pressure waterjet can also be used For a variety of industrial surface treatment applications such as hull cleaning and automotive painting equipment cleaning. The key to the formation of ultra-high pressure water is the high pressure pump.

The high-pressure pump technology below 70Mpa has been relatively mature, and the super-high pressure water above 70Mpa still needs to be supercharged by the supercharger. The working process of the supercharger generally pushes the large piston of the supercharger from the low pressure oil from the oil pump to make it reciprocate, and the moving direction of the large piston is automatically controlled by the reversing valve. On the other hand, the water supply system first purifies the water, and then the low-pressure water is pumped by the water pump, and the low-pressure water entering the supercharger is pressurized by the small piston and the pressure is increased. Since the high pressure water is generated by the continuous reciprocating compression of the supercharger, and the piston of the supercharger needs to be reversed, the pressure of the water jet from the nozzle is pulsating. In order to obtain a stable high-pressure water jet, the generated high-pressure water needs to enter the accumulator and then flow to the nozzle to achieve a stable pressure.

Compared with the traditional "hot" cutting process, the ultra-high pressure water jet cutting machine uses a water flow as the cutting medium and is a "cold" cutting process. It has the following features and advantages:

1.       Widely adapted to the cutting and processing of various materials, with the reputation of "universal cutting machine";

2.       There is no thermal deformation during cutting, which avoids physical and chemical changes of the material;

3.       The cutting seam is less than 1.2mm, which is convenient for cutting the casing and saving materials;

4.       It is operated by numerical control system and has high cutting precision;

5.       The incision is smooth and flat without burrs, and generally no need for further processing;

6.       The process does not produce waste that pollutes the environment.

CNC waterjets are ideal or unique for materials that are difficult to cut by other methods, such as Kevler, titanium alloys, and various composite materials .