In a recent survey on home buying preferences, one out of every four respondents said they preferred a custom-built home rather than a new home already built or an existing home.[1] There are many advantages to having a custom built home: unique finishes, custom floor plan, superior quality, and getting exactly what you want.
Waterjet cutting is widely known for its ability to cut virtually any material to near net shape. These materials vary from rubber to plastics, composites to metals. Versatility is a benefit waterjet cutting brings to many businesses, including New Hampshire based company, Plan Tech. Plan Tech has been manufacturing urethane parts for over 30 years, providing products for diverse groups of industries. Urethane is a high-performance rubber that can be molded easily, shaped accurately, and offers many different finishing options. We’ve invited guest blogger Kevin Healy, Vice President of engineering at Plan Tech, to tell you more about how waterjet cutting has impacted their productivity. With their vast experience and in-house capabilities, they consistently deliver tight tolerance custom urethane parts.
Standoff height, the distance between the tip of the mixing tube and the material you are cutting, is important when cutting parts on a waterjet. In a previous blog I provided recommendations for proper standoff height. In general, stand off height should be about 0.100” (2.5 mm), or as thick as a dime. When your jet is perpendicular to your part, straight up and down, then raising the standoff will increase noise, mess and round the top edge of the part. You will lose a little cut power as well.
It’s important to maintain stand off under conventional waterjet cutting.
I’m pleased to say that we have a guest blogger today. Colleen Carnagey is a major part of Flow’s marketing group and she would like to introduce to you a new feature on our website that might be of real value to you as you become more educated on waterjet capabilities.
Over the years waterjet has created its own vocabulary. I’m fairly new to Flow (in Flow terms–4 years isn’t much on 20), and one thing I realized almost immediately is to feel confident in your understanding of waterjet technology as a whole, you must feel confident in your understanding of the terms used to explain it.
Waterjet gives the best edge. The surface is unaltered, exhibiting no heat or stress damage. This outstanding edge quality it is created by supersonic erosion.
Erosion is an extremely gentle form of material removal, however it achieves amazing results.
For example: the Colorado river can erode the one mile deep Grand Canyon in 35 million years, and the abrasive waterjet can erode over one foot thick of granite at 0.2 inch per minute (5mm/min).
A reader asked why we typically use garnet abrasive opposed to the many other abrasives in the world today. After all, an abrasive waterjet can en-train a wide variety of granular material, and yet the vast majority of machines utilize garnet abrasive.
A filter is a filter is a filter…..right? In our next post by Tim Fabian, we discuss how to choose the right filters for your pump. Now, to Tim.
A filter is a filter is a filter…..right? Not so fast. There are so many types of filters available today it is hard to understand what all the differences are. The important thing to remember though, is that not all will work well with your pump. Just like the cleanliness of the water we drink needs to be clean to sustain our good health, a filter that doesn’t stop the bad stuff from getting into your pump is bad for its health too. Even filters that have the same nominal micron value aren’t always created equal.
I’m excited to bring you our first guest post by Tim Fabian. Tim is a renowned waterjet expert, well versed in everything from machine design to daily operation. It is my pleasure to have him as our guest blogger for this week. Without further ado…. Tim Fabian.
A reader asked about Slurryjet, and why there are no ultrahigh-pressure units out there in the world today cutting in production.
First of all, let’s make sure everyone who has not studied the subject understands what we’re talking about here. Abrasive waterjets today are created by pressurizing water, forcing it through a small jewel orifice where the pressure is converted to velocity, and then the abrasive particles are metered into a mixing chamber and accelerated like a bullet out of a rifle down the mixing tube. Abrasive slurry jet is where a water/abrasive slurry is pressurized and pushed through an orifice. It is inherently more efficient because the water and abrasive are going the same speed, and no momentum transfer from the water to the abrasive is taking place.
Having more than one cutting head on an abrasive waterjet should be much more productive than running one head, right?
By understanding waterjet efficiency, and the relationship between pressure and power, you can equip your shop with the most productive system possible. In short, raising the pressure and putting the power through one head is more efficient than running two heads with normal pressure.
