An erosion model for abrasive waterjet milling of polycrystalline ceramics

Abstract

A modeling study was conducted on the abrasive waterjet milling (AWJM) of polycrystalline ceramics. The optimum jet incidence angle was determined from experiments. A conclusion from previous studies, which indicated intergranular cracking to be the dominant erosion mechanism, was applied. A hypothesis that links the intergranular cracking to impact-induced stress waves was used. An existing expression for the input stress wave energy was adopted in a crack network model to evaluate material removal. A new material constant “AWJM Erosion Resistance” was defined. The derived erosion model is verified with single-pass AWJM experiments.