Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The abrasive water jet is a 30-year old technology widely used to compete conventional machining capabilities. While it is mainly used for cutting applications, studies demonstrated its ability for milling, turning and micro-piercing. But as long as abrasive water jet issues are not clearly identified and analyzed, these processes can hardly be industrialized. This paper proposes an innovative methodology for studying abrasive water jet milling. Its main purpose is to consider the machined depth as an experimental factor and the feed rate as a product. A large-domain full-experimental-design on the pressure, the orifice diameter, abrasive mass flow rate, the milled depth and the feed rate on milling of aluminum 2024 T3 is presented. Finally, a mathematical model on the optimal abrasive mass flow rate and the milled depth are developed. The good correlation of these models within the large experimental domain suggests the pertinence of the proposed methodology.

Keywords

Abrasive water jet milling wear experimental methodology

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Hashish M. Status and potential of waterjet machining of composites. Proceedings of the 10th American Water Jet Conference, Houston, TX, 1999, pp.811–827.

Cenac

Collombet

Deleris

Abrasive water jet machining of composites. In: Davim

(eds). Machining composite materials 2009, pp. 167–180.

Fowler

Pashby

Shipway

. The effect of particle hardness and shape when abrasive water jet milling titanium alloy Ti6AL4V. Wear 2009; 266: 613–620.

Hashish M. An improved model of erosion by solid particle impact. In: 7th international conference on erosion by liquid and solid impact, Cambridge, 1988.

Liu H. A study of the cutting performance in abrasive waterjet contouring of alumina ceramics and associated jet dynamics characteristics. PhD Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2004.

Wang

. Abrasive waterjet machining of polymer matrix composites – cutting performance, erosive process and predictive models. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 1999; 15: 757–768.

Fowler

Shipway

Pashby

. Abrasive water-jet controlled depth milling of I6Al4V alloy–an investigation on the role of jet-workpiece traverse speed and abrasive grit size on the characteristics of the milled material. J Mater Proc Technol 2005; 161: 407–414.

Laurinat A, Louis H and Meier-Wiechert G. A model for milling with abrasive water jets. 7th American Water Jet conference, Seattle, Washington, Paper 8, 1993, pp.119–139.

Abdel-Rahman

El-Domiaty

. Maximum depth of cut for ceramics using abrasive waterjet technique. Wear 1998; 218: 216–222.

10.

Roth P, Looser H, Heiniger KC, et al. Determination of abrasive particle velocity using laser-induced fluorescence and particle tracking methods in abrasive water jets. In: 13th American waterjet conference, Houston, 2005.

11.

Momber

Eusch

Kovacevic

. Machining refractory ceramics with abrasive water jet. J Mater Sci 1996; 31: 6485–6493.

Abrasive water-jet milling of aeronautic aluminum 2024-T3

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References