Particle Velocity in Abrasive Waterjets

Abrasive particle velocity plays a key role in material removal in abrasive waterjet (AWJ) machining. Understanding how certain operating conditions effect the speed of abrasive particles is important for the improvement of the AWJ process. Without a method of measuring abrasive speed, it is difficult to evaluate the cutting performance of an AWJ using theoretical particle velocity modeling. To measure the velocity of single abrasive particles at a variety of different conditions, a magnetic particle sensor system was designed. In order to increase the accuracy and versatility of the sensors, it was constructed with the ability to capture a large amount of velocity data which allows for outlying data to be filtered and the velocity distribution to be analyzed. The results were used to examine how the velocity data can be used to improve the theoretical particle speed models, the influences of varied operating conditions on velocity spread, and the correlation between kinetic cutting power and material erosion.