Cutting thin metal plates without no heat affected zone, no thermal distortion
Unlike other metal processing using flames,arc or laser cutting, waterjet is a "Cold Cutting" process that produces no heat affected areas or burnt edges to the cut surface. The process leaves a smooth edge quality, and it means that there is little or no secondary operation required for most applications, which gives increased productivity with a cleaner & safer cutting solution. Especially, waterjets are the most appropriate solution to cut thin metal plates which are required to achieve tight flatness tolerance.
Cutting thickness of 16mm+ metals or exotic metals such as titanium and alloy steels
Waterjet is extremely powerful, capable of cutting up to 6" thick stainless steel easily by implementing UHP water flows, so it can be used to cut thicker materials than can be processed with laser. On the other hand, it offers greater precision than plasma cutting due to its very small diameter cutting stream (approximately 0.040"), which allows it to produce tight corners with very high tolerances.
Exotic and expensive materials that might otherwise be quite difficult to machine like hardened tool steel, stainless steel or titanium are well suited to abrasive waterjet cutting.
One of the huge advantages of cutting materials like titanium using this technique is that you can significantly cut costs. Also, tool steel is difficult to machine conventionally, particularly once it's hardened, but is fairly easy to machine on an abrasivejet system. Steel can be hardened before or after cutting. Steel hardness has only a minor effect on the rate at which it can be machined with an abrasivejet.
Rubber, foam, stone, ceramic, glass and others
Abrasive waterjets cut composites without leaving a burr or shredding the layers of material, while maintaining a better edge quality. Also, waterjet cutting is ideal for producing foam or plastic packaging components, whether it be one-off bespoke designs or mass production.
Ceramics and glass are strong but brittle substances that used to be difficult to machine and even small scratches on the surface can lead to breaking and shearing.
The waterjet solution is to pierce the glass at low pressure, and then switch to a higher pressure to cut along the toolpath. The speed of the tool path is also adjusted to avoid problems that are associated with brittle materials.
Waterjet can also be used to create designs from stone such as marble and granite. This can be done faster, and with a greater level of detail than traditional methods of working with these materials.
Abrasivejets are very practical and cost-effective for cutting shapes in wood. This is perfect for restaurant signage, custom furniture parts, shop detailing and many other applications where multiple instances of the same shapes are needed.
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