An investigation into stand-off distance & cutting speed on surface roughness using Abrasive Water Jet

Abstract

This paper aims to study the effect of both standoff distance (SOD) and cutting speed as a machining parameters between brass surface and Nozlle of Abrasive Water Jetting Cutting Technology (AWJCT), for optimizing cutting quality of metal product surfaces. High cutting quality for 0.8 mm thickness brass thin sheets using AWJCT by adjusting SOD and cutting speed are used in cutting with this technique. And study used an experimental approach to machine 57 pieces for 0.8 mm thickness brass thin sheets size 100 x 150 mm by AWJCT for the path includes types of straight lines, absute, acute, square angle, curved line and a curved line corresponds to an arc in a single path. SOD and different cutting speeds were used. The used values for SOD& cutting speed were recorded and the results evaluated. Cutting quality was monitored by measuring kerf width at different locations of cutting path and investigated. Experiments results were presented graphically, in order to get the optimum results that give high cutting quality. The effect of both SOD and cutting speed were discussed on the kerf width of samples. The major results are: SOD and cutting speed affected the kerf width at cutting path quality of samples. Using a higher SOD introduced maximum kerf width and low cutting quality, and to improve the cutting quality requires using lower SOD should be used. Increasing cutting speed decreases kerf width of cutting path and introduces high cutting quality, but decreasing cutting speed increased kerf width and introduced low cutting quality. Using of high cutting speeds with low SOD introduced higher cutting quality at samples surfaces. The higher speeds at the cutting path acute angels also resulted the widest kerf width at higher SOD used but, the kirf width in abtuse angle, sguare angle, curved line, a curved line corresponds to an arc and straight line is smaller. The study has shown a considerable effect of the cutting speed on kerf width and surface quality. It was found that the use of SOD of 1 mm with the speed of 150 mm/min are the optimum values to obtain the quality of suitable cut, low cost and time used.