Effects of acoustically generated pulsed hydro jet during rock surface disintegration

Abstract

From centuries old technology, high pressure, lower volume water jet has been used for the erosion. Recently, due to economical limitation, the high-pressure pumps are replaced by the lower pressure pump by using the pulsed water jet technology. The mechanism includes the hitting of a flowing fluid with a solid body generating interim high pressure, which causes interior and external damage of solid body. The pulsed water jet was beneficial in comparison to other technology as impact shock pressure (generated by the hammering effect of the repeated pulse) generated by pulsed jet is 3 to 4 times greater than the stagnation pressure in the continuous water jet. The impact of pulsed jet is also induced fatigue stress in the target material due to cyclic loading of the target surface, which is the most influential factor. This research paper focuses on utilizing pulsed water-jet for rock disintegration. The rock cutting performance of a pulsed water-jet is affected by various factors such as, pressure, traverse speed and standoff distance. Profile of the disintegrated grooves created by the action of pulsed water-jet was characterized and measured by the non-contact type optical Profilometer. Based on the results the mechanism behind the disintegration of rock using pulsed water-jet was discussed. It has been revealing that the pulsed hydro jet is better technology to disintegrate of the rock.