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What is an abrasive water jet or hydrojet cutting machine system?
Abrasive waterjet and water only jet cutter use the technology of high pressure water typically between 30,000 psi
and 90,000 psi, to create extremely concentrated force to cut materials. A water cutter pressurizes a
stream of pure water flow (without abrasive) to cut materials such as foam, rubber, plastic, cloth, carpet
and wood. Abrasive jet cutters mix abrasive garnet to a
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pressurized water stream to cut harder materials. The high pressure water, at ultra sonic speed,
accelerates the abrasive to grind or erode the material and cause the separation of the material.
Examples are: stainless steel, titanium, glass, ceramic tile, marble and granite. When cutting
metal, the process yields very little heat therefore no heat affected zone (HAZ),
and hence in most cases will not require further heat treatment. It is commonly considered as a "cold cut"
process and therefore is safe for flammable materials such as plastic and polymers. With a reasonable cutting speed
setting, the edge quality resulted are often of satisfactory. Combined with CNC technology, ultra high pressure water jetting
is a very handy and versatile cutting equipment with affordable price for stone cutting and metal working in job shops.
Sometimes, experienced engineers can do diy to make their own waterjet cutting machine for fun and for business. To
find more information, click how water jet machines work. Nowadays,
water cutter machines are mostly made in USA, some in Europe and some made in China.
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Highlights of machines provided by International Waterjet Machine (IWM)
- Ultra high and stable pressure for fast cutting and smooth edge finish.
- Overpass or Cantilever Style cutting machines.
- Stainless steel water tank for durable use.
- PC based CNC and MS windows based contorller software, easy to learn and operate.
- Compatible to dxf and G-code, nesting is also available.
- Quick to setup and easy to program (make money on short runs).
- High accuracy control of cutting, upto 0.1mm.
- Special pressure ramping technique to prevent delaminating (cracking) brittle materials while piercing (drilling).
- Cut more than 100mm (4 inches) sheet/plate metal at different
cutting speeds.
- IWM's cutter yields kerf width (the width of the cutting beam) is about 0.8mm (1/32 inch).
- Steady cutting stream, no abrasive output interruption.
- Low cutting consumable cost.
Abrasive garnet and
spare parts on sale.
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Major Water jet Cutting Machine Applications:
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- Automobile, boat and aircraft manufacturing industry -- to cut irregular shaped plastic and metal parts,
as metal cutting machine and plastic cutting machine.
- Glass product industry -- whether it is artistic work or glass cover of a product, wide range of
application in glass industry, often called the glass cutter.
- Construction industry -- to cut ceramic tile, mosaic, and marble, or granite for home,
commercial building or even pavement decoration. Often referred as marble cutting machine or marble cutter,
and granite cutting machine, or granite cutter. In addition, it is often used to cut inlaid designs for
marble/granite medallions.
- Custom fabricated gaskets or other rubber parts for both OEM and individual users.
- Machine shops -- used as general purpose metal cutting machine tool.
- Pipe cutting -- used to cut pipe of various materials, or make special designs on the wall of pipes.
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Comparison of major cutting processes:
Waterjet machines -- fast speed, able to cut thick material, good accuracy and finishing surface. The most outstanding advantage
is its versatility, cuts virtually anything with no heat affected zone(HAZ). The second advantage is able to cut thick
metal or non-metal. This puts water cutter ahead of laser cutter or plasma cutter. Laser cuts fast, but mostly for 1/2 inch or less thick
metal, not to mention waterjet price is usually much lower than that of laser cutting machine. High power plasma can cut thicker metal,
but the cut edge is poor, and no cut on non-metal. Water cutter is widely used as metal cutting machine, glass cutting machine,
ceramic tile cutting machine, marble cutting machine, and granite cutting machine. Typically it can cut
as much as 4" thick of steel (100mm). Some burr occurs near cut. Check out IWM's current
Waterjet on Sale.
Wire EDM -- slow cutting speed, but able to cut very thick material. EDM has very high accuracy and excellent surface finish.
No burr, a little HAZ. The down side is only electrically conductive materials can be cut with EDM. Also there must be a way to drill
a hole for putting through the wire for cutting.
Laser -- good speed and precise cut when cutting thin material. Laser yields little burr, a little HAZ. Laser is suitable to
cut non-reflective mild steel. A 6kw laster machine can cut as much as 25mm (1 inch) steel. Laser cutting machine is also of high
price.
Plasma -- cuts at high speeds and generates heat that leaves rough edges. Accuracy is not very high with plasma cutting.
Plasma cutting Can cut electrically conductive materials, up to 6" of aluminum. Process yields HAZ. Special gas need to assist
the process. Reasonable price of machine.
For more detailed information, including comparison to milling and punch,
see Comparison Matrix of various cutters.
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