Abrasive water-jet milling of aeronautic aluminum 2024-T3

The abrasive water jet is a 30-year old technology widely used to compete conventional machining capabilities. While it is mainly used for cutting applications, studies demonstrated its ability for milling, turning and micro-piercing. But as long as abrasive water jet issues are not clearly identified and analyzed, these processes can hardly be industrialized. This paper proposes an innovative methodology for studying abrasive water jet milling. Its main purpose is to consider the machined depth as an experimental factor and the feed rate as a product. A large-domain full-experimental-design on the pressure, the orifice diameter, abrasive mass flow rate, the milled depth and the feed rate on milling of aluminum 2024 T3 is presented. Finally, a mathematical model on the optimal abrasive mass flow rate and the milled depth are developed. The good correlation of these models within the large experimental domain suggests the pertinence of the proposed methodology.