Cutting meat with bone using an ultrahigh pressure abrasive waterjet

Abstract

An experimental study of abrasive waterjet (AWJ) cutting of beef, pork and lamb meat with and without bone is presented. Salt particles were used as the abrasives. It has been found that an AWJ could significantly increase the depth of cut with much improved cut quality in cutting pure meat as compared to plain (or pure) waterjet cutting, while a plain waterjet was incapable of cutting bone satisfactorily. The study shows that AWJ cutting produced a very narrow kerf of less than 1 mm and hence resulted in mush less meat loss than the traditional cutting processes, and meat can be cut at room temperature to eliminate the freezing or chilling costs. It is shown that a traverses speed of 20 mm/s can be used to cut through 44 mm thick beef rib bones with good cut quality. When slicing pure meat of 150 mm thickness, the traverse speed of 66.67 mm/s can yield very good cut quality. It is suggested that AWJ cutting is a viable technology for meat cutting. Plausible trends for the depth of cut, cutting rate and cut quality with respect to the process variables are discussed. Recommendations are finally made for the selection of the most appropriate process parameters for cutting meat of a given thickness.