Comparative Evaluation of Abrasive Liquid Jet Machining Systems

This paper presents a comparison between two types of abrasive liquid jet cutting systems: entrainment systems, which typically use abrasive-waterjets (AWJs) to perform the cutting; and systems that use directly pumped abrasive slurry jets (ASJs) to perform the cutting. The hardware features and the performance characteristics of the two types of systems are addressed. A simplified analysis indicates that at an abrasive-to-liquid ratio of 1:1, high-pressure directly pumped ASJs are twice as efficient as entrainment AWJs in transferring energy to the particles. Also, directly pumped ASJs are potentially over 20 times as dense with regard to kinetic power delivery to the workpiece. However, high-pressure entrainment AWJs can be more effective than low-pressure directly pumped ASJs.