Waterjetting 10a - Beginning to cut

In the last few posts I have been discussing what happens under a water jet as it first hits, and then penetrates into a target material. In many cases it is recommended that the nozzle move slightly relative to the target during this piercing process so that the water escaping from the developing hole does not have to fight its way past the succeeding slug of water entering the hole.

Now it might be thought that this problem would go away if the nozzle starts at the side of the target and then cuts into it. But this depends on a number of different factors, one of the more critical being as to whether the jet is cutting all the way through the material, or is only cutting a slot part of the way through it. As with a number of other topics, I am going to illustrate some of the concerns using granite as the target material, since it makes it easier to demonstrate some of the points I want to make.

If you were to look at one of the many statues that have been carved from granite over the thousands of years since the rock was first shaped into an art form, the rock usually appears as a relatively homogeneous material. That means (to those who don’t work with rock) that the rock has the same properties regardless of which direction you test them in.


Figure 1. The Italian Carver’s Memorial, Dente Park, Barre, VT (From the Barre Granite Association via State Symbols USA)

However, if you were to ask a skilled quarry man he would tell you differently. Because of the way that granite cools from the molten state in which it is injected up into the ground, it picks up an orientation to the crystals, as they are formed. One of these orientations is roughly horizontal, and called the Lift or grain of the rock. A second is perpendicular to this, and vertical and is known as the Rift. The third plane, orthogonal to the other two is called the Hard-Way, because it is generally more difficult to work. These names relate to the ways in which the grains of the rock, and the cracks around them, align. They are virtually impossible for a lay person to detect, and a quarry man may need to feel the rock to tell you which way they lie. But they are used in splitting out the major blocks from the granite massif, and come into play in breaking the large blocks down into handle-able sized pieces.


Figure 2. The A) Hard-Way B) Rift, and C) Lift planes of crystal orientation in granite

If, however, you were to shoot a short slug of water at high-pressure at a piece of granite (and we used the granite from Elberton in Georgia for this) then, depending on which direction the pulse came from relative to the three planes, the amount of rock that would break around the impact point would change.

In an earlier post discussing the splitting that occurs when pressure builds up within the cavity under a jet, I mentioned that the pressure would grow cracks that already existed. And it is for this reason that when the jet impacts perpendicular to the existing crack planes, that the volume of material broken out is greater than it is where the jet fires along the cracks. This can be shown using the cavity profiles from oriented samples into which the jets were fired.


Figure 3. Profiles from the cavities created around the impact points where the jet impacted granite blocks at different orientations.

One can use this information if, for example, one wanted to cut a thin line in granite, where the cut should be made in the direction of the crystals, i.e. making cuts along the lines shown in the A plane of figure 2.


Figure 4. Linear cuts into granite along the lines shown in Figure 2.

In this set of cuts the jet is cutting along the favored orientation of the crystals, and the rock only spalls when two jet paths approach each other in the lower right of the block.

If, however, the cuts are made in a direction perpendicular to the orientations, i.e. in the B and C planes, then the results are quite different.


Figure 5. Cratering along the linear passes in cutting granite perpendicular to the Rift plane.

Where the jet strikes perpendicular to the Rift or Lift, then the pressurization under the jet is enough to cause those cracks to grow out to the surface, and cause spallation along the cut. In many cases this removes all the rock between two adjacent passes, even if they are more than an inch apart.

If one is to use the high-pressure waterjet system for slotting granite in a quarry, for example, then this can be a very useful tool, since by merely putting two jets on either side of the desired slot the spalling will remove the material between them, without any further jet action. If the jets attack in the perpendicular plane, then the jet has to be rotated over the cut to get the same material removal rate.

In most cases, when cutting in a quarry, because the rock does vary in structure, and grain size, it is better to ensure that all the rock is removed before the nozzles move into the cut, by rotation, but in smaller applications, such as where the excess rock is being removed around a planned sculpture, then enhancing the spall around the impact point can lower the time and amount of energy required in removing unwanted rock.

That is, however, a relatively specialized application, and in most cases it is desirable that the cut be clean, and smooth, and this requires the use of abrasive in the waterjet stream, and so this will be the topic of the next few posts.


Figure 6. Cutting through one inch thick glass, showing the cut through the side of the glass.