3 Advantages of Waterjet Cutting

With waterjet cutting, a flat piece of material is placed on a table and, guided by a computer program, a cutting head moves across the material. An abrasive is drawn into a high pressure water stream of 60,000 psi, and sent through a tiny hole. That’s how a waterjet works. That thin stream of water, traveling very fast, will quickly cut most materials.

Because the stream is so small (typically about .020” in diameter), parts can be nested tightly on the plate, resulting in a minimum of wasted material. Some waterjet machines come equipped with multiple heads with multiple cutting capabilities, thus helping to reduce production time and saving considerable costs for the machine shop and their customers.

But these are not the only advantages of using waterjet to manufacture a variety of parts.

The combination of water, abrasives, and high pressure make nearly any material a candidate for the waterjet. These are just some of them:

• Stainless steel
  
• Carbon steels
  
• Tool steels
  
• Titanium 
  
• Hastelloy
  
• UHMW
  
• Copper 
  
• Ceramics
  
• Granite
  
• Wood
  
• Kevlar
  

In most cases, the only fixturing that’s needed are a few weights placed on the material. The low sideways force—meaning that cutting the material does not push it--also means that parts can be nested closely so less material is wasted.

While smaller parts might require tabs to prevent them from falling into the tank, the overall absence of complex fixturing helps keep costs down and gets the customer’s parts to them sooner. It also means that it's fast and easy to change materials and that no tool changes are required. All materials use the same cutting head, so there is no need to program tool changes or worry about multiple tools.

The temperature of your parts will show little change throughout cutting as opposed to thermal cutting methodologies. Any heat that is generated will be absorbed by the water and returned to the tank. The only rise in temperature comes when piercing a thick metal part. Otherwise, everything remains at room temperature.

Since there are no heat affected zones on your material, there will be no hardening or warping of your parts. And, you can have previously heat-treated parts machined on the waterjet.

We have the waterjet machines to meet your needs, including large format capabilities. Bring us your part or drawings, and we’ll give you a competitive quote. Need a cutting estimate in a hurry? We can turn it quickly!

We also have complete CAD/CAM capabilities and many other services.
Visit http://www.vanindustriesinc.com for more information or call us at 610-582-1118.