Pulsating Abrasive Water Jet Cutting Using a Standard Abrasive Injection Cutting Head - Preliminary Tests

The paper focuses on research into disintegration effects of a pulsating abrasive water jet using a standard abrasive injection cutting head. Forced pulses of a frequency of 20 kHz were generated by a piezoelectric pulse generator using a sonotrode placed in a high pressure system in front of a water jet nozzle. Several variants of the water jet generation in the cutting head were investigated a continuous and pulsating water jets without the presence of the focusing tube to verify the pulse formation in the mixing chamber. Consequently, an abrasive water jet and a pulsating abrasive water jet with an installed focusing tube were studied. At a selected water pressure of 70 MPa, an increase in cutting effects of the pulsating abrasivewater jet on average by 15-20% compared to the continuous abrasive water jet of the same parameters was observed. The authors consider that the increase in efficiency is mainly caused by better distribution of abrasives over the focusing tube cross-section, largely due to separated slugs ofwater forming the pulsating water jet. In this regard, the authors see the potential of further increase in the efficiency of abrasive water jets. Modeling and simulation of the water flow using an appropriate computational system can contribute to achieving an optimal configuration of the pulsating abrasive water jet.