THE ASSESSMENT OF PROPERTIES FOR SELECTED FACTORS IN ABRASIVE WATER JET PROCESS

The article presents the current conditions of abrasive water jet cutting process and factors relative to the quality of cutting surface. The main goal of research was to evaluate the assessment of the cutting depth, corrugated bottom cutting edge and roughness of the specimens depending on selected factors such as cutting velocity and abrasive amount in the abrasive water jet process. Specimen were cut in four phases as a square. Main results were that the distance between water jet entering and water jet leaving is decreased with the increasing abrasive amount and by following lower cutting rates. The increasing of a cutting rate negatively effects the quality of the cut surface and the size of the distance between water jet entering and water jet leaving, because the increasing of a cutting rate increases also values of the mentioned parameters. As to the distance between water jet entering and water leaving, the abrasive amount of 200-250 g.min-1 at the rate of 50 mm.min-1 is considered to be optimal, but outside this range the influence of the abrasive amount impacts negatively, primarily on water jet entering and water jet leaving that has a direct influence on the corrugated bottom cutting edge.