Keeping the actual jet rotation control point of AWJ cutting head right on the cutting path

Abstract

As five-axis machining technology has been used to eliminate the natural defects, such as taper and jet lag, presented on the AWJ cutting surface, setting the jet rotation control point the same as the jet injecting point simplifies the processing of path planning and trajectory generation greatly. However, to get high precision cutting, the jet injecting point needs to be kept right on the cutting path. There are several major reasons which could cause the jet injecting point deviate from the cutting path, including linear motion errors of the X axis and Y axis, the changing of the standoff distance, and the rotational/swivel errors of the cutting head. In order to keep the jet injecting point right on the cutting path, a standoff distance tracker has been applied to keep the standoff distance unchanged. Further, a method to measure the rotational/swivel errors of the rotational/swivel cutting head and an error compensation method have been provided. To verify the effectiveness of this method, a real cutting has been carried out, and higher precision cutting has been reached.