The water jet cutting services, regardless the area they are specialized in, use the same tools - the water jet cutting machines. The difference is made by the water jet size, and the chemical composition of the substance used for cutting. The water jet cutter used by all water jet cutting services is a tool whose function is to slice hard materials like metal, rock or glass, using a jet of water with an extremely high pressure, or a combination of water and an abrasive substance.
Scientist copied a natural phenomenon when creating this tool, that is water erosion. You already know that water “eats” all kinds of materials that stand in its way - from sand stone and limestone to the hardest and heaviest rocks like granite. But this erosive process takes place in thousands of years in order for the water to shape a specific form of relief. They accelerated this kind of process and used advanced technology in order to ease the cutting of sensitive or hard materials. The biggest advantage that water jet cutting services offer is that they cut different materials without exposing them to high temperatures. Water jet cutting is applicable to various industries, like automotive, aerospace, sign making, where cutting, shaping, carving and reaming need special attention.
All water jet cutting services use the same water jet cutting principle for the cutting machine, the only difference is that some prototypes may have different applications, considering the industry in which they are used. The cutting process is quite simple at a first glance, but in fact it’s a complex technology, as the water is controlled at a pressure of 60,000 psi. At this type of pressure, any tiny mistake causes permanent damages to the part that needs to be cut or shaped. There are two types of machines that water jet cutting services use - pure water jet cutter and abrasive water jet cutter.
The pure water jet is the first method used for water jet cutting and in this process, the jet erodes the material, while in the abrasive water jet process, the water is combined with different abrasive substances and those particles erode the materials. The advantage of using an abrasive water jet cutter is that it is far more powerful, and for this reason the water jet cutting services that use the pure water jet method are specialized in cutting soft materials, while the firms using the abrasive water jet method cut extremely hard materials.
The water jet cutting services are used in a lot of industries that imply cutting, shaping, carving and reaming:
- Architecture - this art field uses water jet for applications for cutting and caving stone glass or metal at a large scale
- Aerospace - this industry requires many metal cutting processes, especially aluminium, and exotic metals, like titanium
- Automotive - a lot of water jet cutting services specialized in producing parts for automobiles
- Art - an increasing number of artists discovered the great advantages of water jets when shaping great pieces of art made of marble, stone, metal or glass
http://www.abrasivewaterjetcutting.org/ provides more info about this topic.
No comments:
Post a Comment