Application of Abrasive Water Jet Cutting
Technology for Composite Materials.
Akshay Bharate#1, Prof. G. Jagdale*2
#
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Smt. Kashibai Navale College of Engineering, Pune.
1bharate.akshay@gmail.com
*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Smt. Kashibai Navale College of Engineering, Pune.
2gangadhar.jagdale@gmail.com
Abstract
Although Abrasive jet and Water Jet technology has been
around for years, abrasive jet equipment has just recently
entered the machining tool market. This is extremely exciting
stuff, and there are only a handful of early innovators making a
lot of money replacing and complementing conventional
machining types like laser cutting, plasma cutting, etc. with
water jet cutting methods. Abrasive Water Jet technology has
demonstrated to be an interesting manufacturing process for
space and research equipment, aircraft, marine and automotive
sectors due to its specific advantages when machining composite
materials. However, AWJ cutting of composite laminates
possesses several difficulties. Hence this paper helps us in
studying the effect of the abrasive water jet process parameters
on the quality of cut like taper and surface roughness obtained
while using AWJ for machining of composite as well as other
materials.
Keywords: Abrasive Water Jet; Composite; Parameters;
Quality;
1. INTRODUCTION
Abrasive Water Jet technology has received considerable
attention from these industries due to its specific advantages
when machine composite materials like for e.g. lack of
thermal damage, low tool wear, small cutting forces and high
productivity. This technology has shown to be a better process
for machining of composite materials as well as metals and
some there nonmetals. Composite materials have, despite their
high market price, gained popularity in today's manufacturing
of sophisticated products which have to be light and higher
strength, in order to withstand loads in difficult environments.
Examples of such products are components in the space and
research, aircraft, marine applications and automotive sectors.
Due to the heterogeneous nature of composite materials,
which consist of very strong fibers interwoven and embedded
into a softer matrix, conventional machining techniques do not
work very well on composites as they do in the processing of
metals. Another important application of AWJ is for texturing
of composite materials to enhance the embedment of metallic
inserts in them. It helps to improve mechanical performance
of metal inserts for the union of rotor blades by improving the
inertia, while strengthening and decreasing the total weight of
the designed model structure.
2. WATER JET CUTTING
Water jet is the method consisting of cutting the material by
the use of thin water jets under high pressure with added
abrasive particles used to cut the target material by means of
erosion. The AWJ technique with using high pressure water
for cutting materials was first time patented in 1968 by
researcher in USA, but fast development of water jet cut
method was starting in early 1980s. Today is a rapidly
developing technology that is used in various industries for
machining various engineering materials. It is an emerging
technology, which has many advantages over the other non-
conventional cutting technics. Often, in order to improve the
performance of the process additive is used in the form of
abrasive grains, which allows cutting of very hard materials
with very ease. The correct name of this type of cutting
technology is hydro-abrasive treatment (abrasive water jet).
The figure 1 shows the abrasive water jet cutting system.
Cutting process can be explained briefly as follows. The water
fed by a pump under pressure, after passing through pump the
water passes through the suction nozzle to the abrasive mixing
chamber. Then a mixture of water and abrasive is directed to
the mixing nozzle in order to form and stabilize this mixture.
The result is a stream of hydro-abrasive, which has enough
power to cut through even the toughest materials like a knife
through butter. Water jet we can applied in many areas of
modern industry, such as automotive applications, aerospace
and research, construction engineering, environmental
technology, chemical process engineering, manufacturing
industries and industrial maintenance. Typical water jet
cutting machines have a working space from few square
meters to hundreds of square meters.

Fig.1. The principle of operation of the abrasive water jet nozzle
2.1 Abrasive Water Jet
The abrasive water jet differs from the pure water jet not in
many ways. In pure water jet, the supersonic stream of water
erodes the material. In the abrasive water jet, the water jet
stream accelerates abrasive particles along with them and
those particles, not the water, erode the material. The abrasive
water jet is much more powerful than a pure water jet if used
in similar way. Both the water jet and the abrasive water jet
have their place of works. The pure water jet cuts soft
materials, whereas the abrasive water jet cuts hard materials,
such as metals, stone, composite and ceramics. Within every
abrasive water jet there is always a pure water jet. Abrasive is
added after the pure water jet stream is created. Then the
abrasive particles are accelerated, like a bullet in a rifle, down
the mixing tube. The fig.2 below shows the main components
of AWJ setup.
Fig.2. abrasive water jet cutting system
2.2 Operating Principle
There are many variables such as nozzle orifice diameter,
water pressure, cutting feed rate and the stand distance which
affect the performance of Abrasive Water Jet cutting.
Generally, high cutting quality would be the result of the
conditions.
(1) Pump along with intensifier is used to generate very high
pressure;
(2) Cutting unit consisting nozzle and work table movement
for creating a jet of water and abrasives and
(3) Filtration unit for removing the debris from the water after
use.
This employs a fine, high pressure; high velocity jet of water,
which when bombarded on the work piece erodes the material.
A high-pressure water jet has mainly 2 properties, which make
it potentially useful for the cutting industries. They are its
huge destructive power and its application as a precision
cutting tool which makes it unique from other non-
conventional process. This high velocity water jet when
directed at a target in such a way that, its speed is virtually
reduced to zero on striking the surface. Practically, most of the
kinetic energy of the jet of water is converted in to a very high
pressure. In fact, at the initial stage the transient pressure
reaches several times greater than the normal stagnation
pressure for jet. Because of this water jet will make a hole in
the material if the pressure is high enough on striking on it.
3. MACHINABILITY INDEX AND MACHINABILITY
MODEL BEHAVIOR IN COMPOSITE MATERIALS.
Abrasive Water Jet technology has received considerable
attention from various industries because of its specific
advantages when machine composite materials (e.g. lack of
thermal damage, low tool wear, small cutting forces and high
productivity). This technology has shown to be a suitable
process for machining of composite materials.
However, AWJ cutting of composite laminates possesses
several challenges. There are a few studies that analyses the
effect of input parameters on the quality of the cutting edge,
e.g. Kalla et al. (2012), Shanmugan and Massod (2008) and
Wang (1999), or investigations that optimize process
parameters for trimming CFRP materials with good quality,
e.g. Etxeberria et al. (2010). Nevertheless, industrial end users
still need to develop process knowledge, since machine
manufacturers do not provide good databases for composite
cutting. It is necessary to develop a methodology to adapt the
process parameters for each type of composite material which
will allow AWJ cutting operations to be easily carried out on
composite materials. These results were analyzed from
reference [1]. The type of finish obtained by AWJ was
analyzed and can also be seen in the figure below.
 5. COMPARISON WITH OTHER NON-CONVENTIONAL
Fig.3. Type of surface finish by AWJ on composite material.
4. AWJ TEXTURING OF COMPOSITE
MATERIALS
Abrasive Water Jet technology has demonstrated to be a
flexible method for obtaining different surface textures, by
adjusting both process parameters and tool path strategies. For
the target application, its main advantage over other
techniques is its capability of treating surfaces with complex
geometries. Despite the compressive residual stresses and the
rough pattern generated by AWJ texturing, it provides to the
manufactured components both fatigue strength and rough
surface texture which are usually required for coatings in
automotive and aircraft industries. By referring reference [2],
the abrasive water jet texturing for embedment of metallic
inserts in composite materials was studied. The objective of
this experimental work in the reference consisted on
determining the AWJ process parameters in order to obtain
two different texture patterns in the metallic material surface:
1) Roughed surface, with an Rz of 100 μm.
2) Knurled-like surface, with a depth between 0.5 and 0.8 mm
and a lateral feed of 1 mm. The surfaces obtained in the
roughing tests in experiment referred from reference [2] are
shown in Fig. 4.
Fig.4. Roughing tests
MACHINING PROCESS
 When comparing with Lasers:
 Abrasive water jets can machine many materials that
lasers cannot.
 Uniformity of material is not very important to an
Abrasive jet.
 Abrasive jets do not heat up part. Thus there is no
thermal distortion or hardening of the material.
 Precision abrasive jet machines can obtain about the
same or higher tolerances than lasers (especially as
thickness increases).
 When comparing with EDM
 Abrasive jets are much faster than.
 Abrasive Jets machine a wider variety of materials
(virtually any material).
 Abrasive jets make their own pierce holes.
 Abrasive jets do not heat the surface of what they
machine.
 Abrasive jets require less setup.
 Make bigger parts.
 When comparing with flame cutting
 Abrasive jets provide a better edge finish
 Abrasive jets don't heat the part
 Abrasive jets can cut virtually any type of material
 Flame cutting is typically faster than AWJ
 When comparing with milling
 There is only one tool to qualify on an abrasive jet
 Cleaning up is much faster with an abrasive jet
 Programming is easier and faster
 Machine virtually any material.
 When comparing with punch presses
 Place holes closer to the materials edge
 Thick materials are fine
 Brittle &Hard materials are no problem.
6. ADVANTAGES OF AWJ
 Extremely fast setup and programming.
 Very little fixtures required for most parts
 Machine virtually any 2D shapes
 It is a cold cutting process
 It requires no start hole.
  Environment friendly.
 Clippings are valuable
 Machine thick stuff.
 There is only one tool.
 Very low side cutting forces during cutting
7. DIFFICULTIES IN AWM PROCESSES
7.1. Jet Lag: The cutting is achieved through a grinding
process where a fluid-garnet mixture is used instead of a
grinding wheel. The fluid jet drags the abrasive through the
material in a curved path as the fluid lags the nozzle. This
phenomenon is similar to what happens when one whirls a
rope around in the air; the drag force on the rope causes the
rope to lag one’s hand. Similarly, the fluid lags the moving
nozzle, and the mixture cannot cut straight through the work
piece. Due to this fluid lag, it is especially important that the
nozzle should be slowed down when turning sharp
corners. Machining can go much faster when the edges of
pieces are rounded. The abrasive jet is not a rigid tool that
simply must be guided along a particular path to make a part.
The jet bends and wobbles from side to side, and its shape is
highly dependent upon the speed at which it is moved along
the path.
7.2 Kerf: Abrasive jets have a tool width that typically ranges
between 0.020" (0.5mm) and 0.040" (1.0mm), depending on
the mixing tube diameter. As one slows down to make a nice
corner, the kerf grows slightly. The amount it grows is a
function of how much one slowed down by. The amount you
must slow down by is a function of your material thickness. In
other words, the thicker the material, the harder it is to get
precision in the corners. Most controllers compensate for kerf
width automatically, but don't fully compensate for the kerf
growing as a function of speed. Kerf width depends on the
nozzle you are using. With low horsepower pumps, you have
a narrower kerf. With high horsepower pumps, you have a
larger kerf.
7.3. Contamination of Some Surfaces: There is contamination
of the surfaces generated during the machining process by
fractured abrasives left after machining. This contamination
may generate serious problems with the further treatment of
these surfaces, such as grinding, welding and/or coating. In
aerospace, materials like fiber reinforced plastics (FRP),
particles trapped between individual fibers will cause
delamination which is not appropriate for such critical
applications. Other service properties, namely fatigue
resistance, will be influenced negatively due to surface
contaminants. Abrasive contamination is a process when
microscopically small abrasive debris gets trapped on the
surface and due to impact grit might cause surface fracture
and fraction of it embeds. The experiment study undertaken
for commonly used ductile material, aluminum helps us to
determine the effect of contamination on it. The result is
significant and indicating that as the depth of cut increases the
grit contamination increases for ductile material. Al-Mg4,
5Mn is used as a base material for manufacturing most of the
aircraft and aerospace components. The comparison study was
carried out between straight cutting and oscillation cutting and
it showed that the oscillation cuts are 10 times better than
straight cut for ductile material with respect to particle
contamination. [Alternate Technology is suggested to
overcome this problem of contamination.]
7.4. Consistency of Pump Pressure: Variations in water jet
pump pressure can cause marks on the final part, which is
undesirable. It is important that the pump pressure should vary
as little as possible while machining is in progress to prevent
any distortion marks of finished surface. (This becomes an
issue only when looking for very high surface finish, better
than +-.005" (0.125mm) tolerances, however).
8. CONCLUSION
From above discussion we have concluded that “Water jet
Machining” has various advantages as
 Cheaper than other processes.
 Cut virtually any shape &material
 Make all sorts of shapes with only one tool.
 Cut wide range of thickness’ to reasonable tolerance
up to 2” thick
 No mechanical stresses
 Fast turnaround on the machine.
 Leaves a satin smooth finish, thus reducing
secondary operations.
 Clean cutting process without gasses or oils.
 Your "scrap" metal is easier to recycle or re-use (no
oily chips!).
 Modern systems are now very easy to learn.
 Can easily switch between high production, and
single piece production, on the same machine, with
no extra effort.
 Are very safe.
 No "scaly" edges, which makes it easier to make a
high quality weld.
 Machine composite materials.
 Machine stacks of thin parts all at once.
We have experimentally found out the type of roughness
obtained by AWJ on composite materials. Hence it can be
seen to very useful method for embedment of metallic inserts
in composite materials.
We have also determined the machinability index and the
effects of various parameters like feed rate, separation speed
and other material properties. It also experimentally showed
the quality of cut and roughness obtained on different
composite materials.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Alberdia, A. Suáreza, T. Artazaa, G. A. Escobar-
Palafoxb, K. Ridgwayb, “Composite Cutting with Abrasive
Water Jet”, Procedia Engineering 63 (2013) 421 – 429
[2] T. Artaza, A. Alberdia, J. Olitea, J. L. Latapiaa, D. Gila,
A. Suareza, A. Riveroa “Abrasive Water jet texturing as a
method to enhance the embedment of metallic inserts in
composite materials,” Procedia Engineering 132 (2015) 724 –
731
[3] Daniel Krajcarz, “Comparison Metal Water Jet Cutting
with Laser and Plasma Cutting”, Procedia Engineering 69
(2014) 838 – 843
[4] www.waterjets.org