abrasive waterjet machining of various materials: a revie … · · 2017-08-01448 r. senthil...

ADVANCES in NATURAL and APPLIED SCIENCES

ISSN: 1995-0772 Published BYAENSI Publication EISSN: 1998-1090 http://www.aensiweb.com/ANAS

2017 Special 11(6):pages 445-453 Open Access Journal

ToCite ThisArticle: R. Senthil Kumar, T. Prithivi, R. Premkumar, S. Gajendran, R. Kesavan, Abrasive Waterjet Machining of Various Materials: A Review.Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences. 11(6); Pages: 445-453

Abrasive Waterjet Machining of Various Materials: A Review 1R. Senthil Kumar, 2T. Prithivi, 3R. Premkumar, 4S. Gajendran, 5R. Kesavan,

1Research Scholar, Anna University/Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Chennai-44 2Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Chennai-44 3 Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Chennai-44 4Associate Professor, Department of Production Technology, Anna University, MIT campus, Chennai-44, India 5Professor & Head, Department of Production Technology, Anna University, MIT campus, Chennai-44, India

Received 28 January 2017; Accepted 22 March 2017; Available online 28 April 2017

Address For Correspondence: R. Senthil Kumar, Research Scholar, Anna University/Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Chennai-44

E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright © 2017 by authors and American-Eurasian Network for ScientificInformation (AENSI Publication). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ABSTRACT Abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) is a non-conventional non-traditional machining process widely used for material removal processes of various materials in industries. Various materials include metals, its alloys and composites such as FRPs, PCD, etc. The various factors that retain as a drawback of AWJM is kerf angle, surface roughness and material impingement. The machining parameters such as jet angle, target material, number of passes, abrasive granules, nozzle diameter, SOD, etc., influence the above factors. In this paper, AWJM of various target materials and their corresponding results are discussed based on published literature which provides an idea over the selection of target material for high performance in the research field.

KEYWORDS: abrasive water jet machining, AWJM of different materials, machining of hardest material, machining of

composites, effects of AWJM

INTRODUCTION

The Abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) technology is a non-traditional and unconventional machining

process. It works on the principle of erosion effect where the abrasive particles mixed with the water jet erode

the target material by hitting on them. Thus, material removal takes place there. This process has various

advantages than other machining processes such as: (i) intricate profiles can be easily machined (ii) no special

additional tools are required for machining, thus time is saved in changing tools (iii) it gives almost burr free

cutting and gives better surface finish of kerf walls upon appropriate setting of the parameters (iv) it provides a

narrow kerf width which is approximately equal to its jet diameter, hence it results in tight nesting for optimum

material usage (v) because of the presence of water, it is an inherent cool cutting machine, therefore even heat

sensitive materials can be machined easily and heat affected zones are not induced (vi) this machining process is

also environmental friendly, since the machined debris are carried away by the water jet itself and are self-

cleaning.[1]-[3]

In all manufacturing and other processes, material plays a major role. The materialsinclude metals and its

alloys and various composites which exist in various forms around us. Machining of such materials differs from

one to another. AWJM acts as a unique methodology to machine all such materials. The various machining

processes such as drilling, cutting, grinding, milling, sawing, etc., can be done by AWJM without any thermal

damage to the component. Thus, AWJM may be considered as an alternative for conventional machining

446 R. Senthil Kumar et al., 2017/Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences. 11(6) Special2017, Pages: 445-453

processes. Various research works in AWJM of various materials including the hardest PCD is reviewed here

and analysed for the research potential on application of AWJ technology on various materials.

Working Principle of AWJM:

The water jet machining process has its origin from the nature i.e. when a stream of water flows on the

ground, it erodes the soil. When the same water stream has some heavy sand particles along with it, the erosion

rate is high; this resulted in the development of AWJM. In AWJ technology, high pressurized water is forced

through the orifice and abrasive particles from a hopper are allowed to mix with it in a mixing chamber which

leads to a forced water jet with abrasive particles. This AWJ erodes the material in a faster rate when compared

to pure water jet. In this process, the material removal rate is determined by various factors such as properties of

abrasive particle used, feed rate, traverse speed, jet impact angle, jet diameter, properties of target material and

stand-off distance.

A schematic sketch of an AWJ machine is shown in Fig.1. The major components are high pressure water

pump, CNC controller, AWJ generator (Fig.2.). Generally, the pressurized water is about 200-400 MPa and this

pressurized water is passed through an orifice whose diameter is about 0.2-0.3 mm. The velocity of the outlet

water jet is near to 200-300 m/s. The motion of the cutting jet is controlled by a Computerized Numerical

Control unit (CNC) which leads to high dimensional accuracy in machining.

Fig. 1: Schematic sketch of AWJ machine.

Fig. 2: AWJ generator.

Factors Deciding the Performance of AWJM:

The main factors which decide the performance of an AWJM are kerf taper, kerf width and surface

roughness of the kerf wall. Kerf taper is the tapering angle made by the AWJ during machining. Taper width is

the width of the cut at the top and the bottom of the target material made by the AWJ. Surface roughness is the

factor which defines the degree of smoothness of the machined surface. All these three factors can be influenced

by changing the working parameters mentioned earlier. The kerf surface also has a jet affected zone i.e. on the

top of the machined surface, the surface finish is smoother whereas upon moving deeper, certain burrs are


created. Fig.3 depicts the parameters such as top width, bottom width, kerf taper, jet affected zone, smooth zone

and striation zone.[4]

Fig. 3:AWJ cut kerf geometry and wall roughness.

Parameters Affecting the Performance of AWJM:

As mentioned earlier, the various parameters affecting the performance of AWJ are water pressure, nozzle

traversing speed, abrasive flow rate, stand-off distance and jet impact angle. The relation between cutting

performance and the AWJ parameters are shown in the flow chart below (Fig.4.)

Fig. 4:AWJ cutting performance and parameters relationship

Parameters such as SOD, traverse speed and water pressure majorly influences the top and bottom kerf

width. The top and bottom kerf width increases on increase in SOD and water pressure and on decrease in the

traverse speed. The water pressure and traverse speed influences the surface roughness/striation i.e. upon

increase in traverse speed, surface roughness also increases. Fig.5 and Fig.6 depicts the above mentioned

characteristics. [4]

Fig. 5: Traverse speed vs. kerf taper and width


Fig. 6: Traverse speed vs. surface roughness.

AWJ Cutting Performance on Different Materials:

From the literatures, it is evident that AWJ cutting is mostly used for materials with high strength and

materials which are very difficult to be machined (such as PCD) by conventional machines. The following

content explains the effect of change in various machining parameters which influences the performance

deciding factors.

A study on the varying effects of SOD, abrasive particle, abrasive flow ratewith keeping jet impingement

angle as constant (90 )̊ for machining polycrystalline diamond (PCD) is summarised in Table 1.

Table 1: Summary on awj trials on pcd grades with different properties and their effect on jet through cutting capabilities

Sample material Resistance to AWJ

cutting

Abrasive material Process parameters Through cut

mf kg/min Vf mm/min Yes/No

CTB002 High inter-growth

Vol. of Co:15.1%

Vol. of diamond:84.8% Diamond grain size: 2µm

Hardness: HK 50Gpa

Highest Alumina 0.168 10 No

5 No

2 Nearly

Silicon carbide 0.168 2 Yes

Diamond 0.058 10 Yes

30 Yes

60 Yes

150 Yes

250 Yes

400 No

600 No

CTC002

Medium inter-growth

Vol. of Co:17.6%

Vol. of diamond:82.4% Diamond grain size: 2µm

Hardness: KH 48Gpa

Medium Alumina

0.168 2 Yes

Silicon carbide

0.168 2 Yes


CTH025

Lowest inter-growth

Vol. of Co:7.9% Vol. of diamond:92.1%

Diamond grain size: 25µm

Hardness: KH 52Gpa

Lowest Alumina

0.168 2 Yes

Silicon carbide

0.168 2 Yes


The kerf characteristics of machining PCD varies widely with the variation in abrasive materials (Fig. 7)

[5].

Fig. 7: Kerf Taper and Ra


A study on the AWJM of hard materials like granite, grey cast iron and rocklike material by varying its

machining parameters such as SOD, depth, kerf width, and water pressure is summarised and shown in the

graphs below. As the pressure and traverse speed increases, metal removal rate (MRR) also increases (Fig.8, 9).

As the stand-off distance (SOD) increases, MRR increases to a certain limit and then decreases gradually

(Fig.10) [6],[7]

Fig. 8: Effect of variation of traverse speed (mm/min) on material removal rate (gm/min).

Fig. 9: Effect of variation of pressure (bar) on material removal rate (gm/min).

Fig. 10: Effect of variation of SOD (mm) on material removal rate (gm/min).

There are also some other effects on changing machining parameters which are mentioned as follows: Upon

increasing the traverse speed and SOD, the depth of cut and kerf width decreases. Upon increasing the water

pressure, the depth of cut and kerf width increases. Thus, by maintaining optimum parameters, a good machined

material can be achieved in AWJM. [8],[9]

Certain alloys such as titanium alloy, aluminium alloy are also machined in AWJM and their parametric

study is as follows: As the traverse speed and SOD increases, taper angle and surface roughness increases. (Fig.

11,13,14,15) When abrasive flow rate increases, taper angle decreases and surface roughness decreases. (Fig.

12,16)

48

49

50

51

52

200 210 220 230 240

MR

R

Traverse Speed

48

49

50

51

52

200 210 220 230 240

MR

R

Pressure

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

1 2 3 4 5

MR

R

SOD


Fig. 11: Taper angle vs. travelling speed

Fig. 12: Taper angle vs. abrasive mass flow rate

Fig. 13: Taper angle vs. SOD

Fig. 14: Surface roughness vs. travelling speed


Fig. 15: Surface roughness vs. SOD

Fig. 16: Surface roughness vs. Abrasive mass flow rate

These properties remain similar for all such alloys of titanium and aluminium. So, it gives an idea over

machining of such alloys in AWJ technique with optimum parameters which results in good finish in machining

[10],[11].

Composite materials play a major role in our day-to-day life and therefore machining of such materials

should be done precisely since the cost of composite materials are high. The study of machining parameters of

composite materials such as polymer composite, polymer matrix composite, glass fibre reinforced polymer,

epoxy glass fibre, aramid FRP, graphite epoxy laminate, fibre reinforced concrete is discussed below: Surface

roughness of the composite materials increase when the water pressure, abrasive flow rate decreases and when

traverse speed, SOD increases.[12]-[14] Similarly, the kerf angle increase upon increase in the water pressure

and decreases on increase in traverse speed.[15]-[17] The material removal rate (MRR) is improved upon

increase in traverse speed. [12],[18]-[20] The above said is experimentally explained [12] and the results are

shown below. (Fig. 17)


Fig. 17: Effects of process parameters on composite materials

As these parametric effects are common to all composite materials and ceramics, the machining of any such

ceramics can be made easy by selecting optimum parameters[20],[21]. The main disadvantage in machining

composites in AWJ technology is delamination and abrasive particle impingement [4],[22],[23].This also can be

avoided by selecting proper machining techniques in addition to AWJM such as thermal enhancement

techniques, etc.

Another composite material named glass/epoxy composite is machined by AWJM and the parametric study

is as follows: As the pressure increases and SOD decreases, the surface roughness decreases. As the abrasive

flow rate increases, there is an increase in depth of cut which also decreases the surface roughness. But, as the

traverse rate increases, surface roughness also increases [24].

In the AWJM of marble, when the water pressure and traverse speed increases, there is a decrease in the

kerf width. Out of all the selected parameters only nozzle transverse speed was significantly affecting the kerf

taper angle with a percentage contribution of 92.505%. Water pressure termed as less significant for kerf taper

angle with a percent contribution of 3.584 % [25].

In the parameters optimization on surface roughness improvement for Zerodur optical glass using an

innovative rotary abrasive fluid multi-jet polishing process, a combination of the silicon carbide abrasive with

the mean diameter of 3.0 m, the abrasive concentration of 20 wt%, the polishing head with a rotation of 20 rpm,

the nozzle number of six, the fluid pressure of 6 kg/cm2, the polishing time of 60 min and the step-over of 40%,

has been determined as the optimal process parameters. It was observed that about a 98.33% improvement on

surface roughness from (Ra) 0.360 m to (Ra) 0.006 m has been achieved using the optimal parameters [26].

The parametric study on the AWJM of glass is as follows: With an increase in SOD, the taper of cut also

increases. But increase in traverse speed, decreases the taper of cut. As the jet pressure increases, the cutting

ability is enhanced [27].

Conclusion:

The abrasive water jet machining with optimum parameters is known for its narrow kerf width and faster

cutting rate when compared to other machining process. Its inherent qualities such as self-cleaning, cool cutting,

no additional tool or fixture requirements are the added advantages to this process. Based on these inherent

properties, the abrasive water jet machining can be opted as an alternating tool for machining various materials.

Though AWJM is suitable for all materials, there is also a disadvantage of having rough machined surface and

undesirable taper. During AWJM of composite materials, delamination and abrasive particles impingement in

work piece are the major issue. These undesirable factors of the parent material also reduce the capacity of the

machined material to withstand its design load. However, thesedefects can be reduced by analysing the optimal

conditions for machining. Preliminary experimentation has to be carried out for deciding the optimum

parameters for machining any materials. The overall conclusion gives a research potential for establishing

optimal machining parameters in order to minimize or eliminate undesirable effects and defects for any material.

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abrasive waterjet machining of various materials: a revie … · · 2017-08-01448 r. senthil...

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