Impact of chosen parameters on surface undulation during the cutting of agglomerated materials with an abrasive water jet

Abstract

The paper deals with the cutting of agglomerated materials with an abrasive water jet from the point of view of surface finish undulation. It shows the impact on un dulation of technical and technological parameters (feed rate and abrasive mass flow) and material parameters (material thickness and cutting direction). The paper also contains a methodology for the assessment of the effect of these parameters on surface finish undulation, and presents the results of experiments using this metho dology on MDF, OSB boards and on technical beech plywood. MDF boards, out of all the materials monitored, have the most homogeneous structure throughout their whole cross section, which affected the insignificance of parameter Ra. For OSB boards, a lower surface quality with a higher feed rate was found, in contrast to plywood, where a higher feed rate improved the surface quality. A higher amount of abrasive flow caused lower surface quality. In the change of cutting direction from longitudinal to cross cutting, the arithmetic average deviation increased and surface quality declined.