Waterjetting 34c - Holes, pressure and delamination

If you ever go to an Old-Time Miners celebration, you may watch a group of competitors drilling holes through rock by hand with a cold chisel and a hammer. (You can see an example here). In the competition the contestant has 5 minutes to drill either a ¾” or 1-inch diameter hole as deep as possible typically using a 4-lb hammer. The best results will reach around 8-inches deep in that time.

It was the way that miners, and others, have driven holes into rock for millennia, but the skill that gives the highest penetration rate isn’t based on the person with the largest strength and fastest striker arm. No, rather it is the driller that controls the twist of the chisel correctly between successive blows, turning it just enough that the rock between the new strike and the old is chipped off by the impact.

By indexing the drill around the hole (the distance varies a little with rock type) the volume of rock removed by crushing under the chisel impact is magnified several-fold by the chip that is broken off to the side.

Figure 1. Relative volume of rock crushed, and chipped by lateral wedging to the next cut over.

Obviously the chipping makes much better use of the energy than would be the case if the driller just tried to completely crush all the rock using the chisel. However the chisel has to crush some of the rock in order to penetrate below the surface and get a better purchase for the chipping to be effective.

This makes sense in many other cases as well. And in order to make the best use of a cutting or drilling tool you need to understand how it works, how the target material responds – and how these two factors can be combined to give the best performance.

However, the use of a waterjet cutting tool brings a little extra to the table, since as the jet cuts down into the material, it will not, in the first few milliseconds of penetration, put any great lateral pressure on the sides of the hole, but will only focus on removing material in front and to an extent to the immediate side of the jet path.

The change and growth of the lateral pressure in the walls around the hole, and the widening of the bottom of the cut, occurs as it becomes more difficult for the spent water to escape from the cutting region, and the increasing turbulence of the water at the bottom of the cut starts to eat into the walls of the slot.

Figure 2. Widening of a slot at the bottom as the pressure distribution at the bottom of the cut changes. (Cuts were made at different pressures and AFR into granite, at a constant traverse speed) The view is of the end of the block showing the lengths of the cuts made down into the black as the nozzle traversed on the top of the block and towards the camera.

This build up of pressure at the bottom of the cut can become a problem. As the resistance to the water flowing away increases, so the water can penetrate into any larger cracks, or layers in the material, and apply that higher pressure to the plane of weakness. This can, in turn, lead to delamination of the part, or in some rock types it can cause some severe spalling around the impact hole, which may not be the intended result. (Or the sample may split.)

Figure 3. Spalling around an impact point as a jet penetrated into a block of rock.

The way to minimize this build-up is to make sure that the parameters of cutting (the traverse speed and pressure particularly) are chosen so that this does not occur (lower pressure, faster speed). Where this choice of parameters means that the jet won’t cut all the way through the part on a single pass, then it is usually better to plan on making a series of passes along the cutting path, keeping a relatively smooth wall to the cut, and reducing the chances of getting delamination.

This also holds true when cutting glass, although one has also to consider the size of the abrasive in this case since that will control the size of the cracks that are made in the sides of the cut, and the smaller these are, then the higher the pressure required before they will grow.

Figure 4. The effect of particle size on the crack lengths generated on the sides of a cut into glass. (The cuts were made from left to right with particles of SS-70 (0.0117 in diameter); SS-230 (0.0278 in diameter); SS-110 (0.0139 in diameter). (Shotpeener gives size ranges)

As a result in borderline cases it may be helpful to use a finer mesh abrasive to reduce crack size on the interface, where there is a chance of pressure buildup in the bottom of the cut.

Incidentally modern machines allow considerable precision in making multiple cuts – so that repeated passes can be achieved with relatively consistent precision. Perhaps I can illustrate this with a slightly out-of-focus picture of the insert cut from a counter-sunk hole using two passes of a jet in comparison with the pile of chips that resulted from the conventional removal.

Figure 5. Single piece insert removed from a counter-sunk hole cut with a chamfered edge, and removed as a single piece, in contrast with conventional chips.

However there are occasions where the ability to use the down-hole pressure to penetrate and break out the central core of material can be an advantage. One such occurs in mining applications where the rock is held under confinement. Where the jet first cuts a slot around the outside perimeter of the hole, this relieves the ground stress on the material in the core of the hole. That expands a little, opening the cracks in its structure. (In some cases, where the ground stress is high, this stress relief alone is sufficient to either break the core material into disks or to pulverize it into small pieces, but in these cases the ground is often sufficiently close to breaking already that most sensible folk would not be there).

I will return to talk about the break-up of such cores next time.

Waterjetting 25b - range with abrasive

In the last post I wrote about the impact of smaller jet diameters, and higher pressures, in truncating the range over which a waterjet is effective. The same is true, to an extent, when one adds abrasive to the water.

Our “green tube” test has been described in earlier posts, where the distance over which particles settle out of the jet provide a measure of how much energy they were given. However it is not that simple to interpret the results from these tests. The reason is that, as with a plain waterjet, the range of the particles is controlled to a degree by the size of the individual grain. Why is this? Well this series tries to keep formulae to a minimum, but one is needed in the answer to that question.

The origin comes from our friend Newton, whose Laws have come down to us over the centuries, and the second of which states:

Force = mass x acceleration

Consider that when an initially stationary particle is sitting in a jet stream, the force being applied to it by that jet is equal to the pressure of the jet, multiplied by the area over which the pressure is applied. If for simplicity we assume that the particle is spherical, then the area over which the pressure is applied (assuming that the particle is centralized within the jet stream) is equal to the pressure multiplied by the cross-sectional area, which is given by the product of the square of the radius multiplied by pi.

On the other hand the mass of the particle is related to the volume, which is in a cubic relationship with the radius. Thus if these two terms are substituted in the equation above, and combining all the non-radial terms into a constant results in an equation where:

Acceleration x radius cubed x constant = pressure x radius squared x constant

Rewriting this gives:

Acceleration = (1/radius) x pressure x constant.

This means that larger particles have smaller accelerations for a given pressure, while smaller ones accelerate faster.

However, and this pertains to the results we saw from the green tube tests, just as the smaller particles are accelerated faster while in the jet stream as it passes through the nozzle assembly, so those smaller particles will decelerate faster when having to travel through the relatively stationary air outside of the nozzle.

Thus if you are, for example, using a smaller jet flow (and smaller jet orifice in consequence) then the normal practice is also to reduce the size of the focusing tube, and – to otherwise keep the system practical – to also reduce the size of the abrasive particles fed into the system.

However, while this gives a better cutting effect immediately under the nozzle (hence the widespread recommendation to restrict the standoff distance between the nozzle and the target to about a quarter-of-an-inch) there is a more rapid decline in the speed of the particles as they move away from the nozzle. The net result is a shorter range for the jet, and a shorter cutting depth in consequence.

There is a small caveat to holding this as an absolute conclusion. Back in the days of the U.S. Bureau of Mines Dr. George Savanick showed that where an abrasive jet could be held within a relatively narrow slot, as it cut down, that the walls of the slot tended to concentrate the jet, and thus extend its range beyond that achieved if the jet were, for the sake of example, just cutting through a piece. Thus, when not through-cutting the part, there will be some extension of the jet range, and this has to be considered when setting the operating parameters for a particular job.

Which brings us back to defining the optimum size of the operating plant required to complete a given job, and a resolution of the optimum parameters for carrying out the job.

As I have noted before, this is not a simple and straightforward choice. Proponents of different operating systems will advocate different solutions based on the units that they are most familiar with. And there are arguments that can be made for different choices. However, in making the choice of the best system to use, one must be aware of the limitations (as well as the benefits) of the different choices that might be available.

Consider that a lower pressure, higher flow rate system might use larger particles, and thus be able to cut through a target plate of a given thickness with better speed than a higher-pressure, lower flow rate alternative. However were the target to be of a thinner stock where the range of the jet is not that critical, then the higher pressure system may well give the better performance (given, inter alia, that it will also use less abrasive and water).

Making a selection as to the better operating system, therefore, requires a clear understanding of the different modes in which the system is likely to be used. Will it be for relatively thin materials, where high precision and narrow cuts are required, but the material need not necessarily be through-cut. Or is the system one where a cut may be required through perhaps 30-inches of reinforced concrete in a reactor (of which more in a later post). In the latter case the lower pressure, higher flow rate jet, with the ability to use larger particles and sustain their velocity further, when further confined by the walls of the cut. The former condition would argue for the use of a higher-pressure, lower-flowrate combination, while the latter (as a generalized statement) would incline more to the lower pressure alternative. (And the terms are relative, since in the latter case we are likely still talking about pressures of around 30,000 psi or higher to achieve the depths of cut within the reinforced concrete.)

Much is written about having to make absolute choices in cutting, but in many cases it is only a matter of relative performance, with systems across a range of parameters being able to effectively achieve the goal. The selection of which system to use should focus more on the normal range of materials that one is expected to cut in the normal course of operations. (And slicing though parts of a nuclear reactor is not normal in most aspects of this business).

Waterjetting 16b - Optimum Abrasive Feed Rate and Depth

The post that I wrote last week was focused on the misperception that you need to add more abrasive to an abrasive waterjet if you wish to cut through thicker material. This is wrong on a number of counts, but most particularly because a good operator will have tuned the nozzle to achieve the best cutting jet, based on pressure and abrasive feed rate (AFR) regardless of target material. What the operator may change is the operating pressure (which would change the optimum AFR) and the traverse speed since these control the depth and quality of the cut that the jet makes.

But, before leaving the topic, I would like to discuss, in a little more detail, the concept of the optimal amount of abrasive that one should use with a given jet, and what happens as that feed rate is changed. As I mentioned last time, because of differences in the shapes of the mixing chambers of the nozzles supplied by different manufacturers, the specific sizes and optimal flow rates will differ from nozzle to nozzle but the overall conclusions remain the same.

Last time I pointed out that the driving waterjet had to break up within the mixing chamber in order to properly mix with the abrasive and to bring this up to a maximum speed before the mix left the focusing tube. Where the driving jet is too large then this breakup is not complete and the mixing is not efficient. As a result the jet that comes out of the end is more diffuse and the abrasive will not have reached the full velocity possible. However, if the incoming waterjet is made smaller for the same AFR and other mixing chamber geometries, then the cutting performance will decline.

Figure 1. Effect of increase in jet pressure when cutting aluminum with an AFR of 1.7 lb/minute (after Hashish, M., "Abrasive Jets," Section 4, in Fluid Jet Technology- Fundamentals and Applications, Waterjet Technology Association, St. Louis, MO, 1991.)

For a similar reason adding a polymer to the jet fluid should only be carried out with some care for the consequences. Long-chain polymers can give a jet increased cohesion and this can, at high enough concentrations, inhibit jet breakup in the mixing chamber thus reducing the effectiveness of mixing in the chamber.

Figure 2. The effect of changing cutting fluid on AWJ performance (after Dr Hashish ibid)

Polyox, (polyethylene oxide) is an extremely effective polymer for increasing jet performance by cohering the jet and reducing the friction losses between the pump and the nozzle. However, as the graph shows, adding it to some abrasive systems will reduce performance since the more coherent jet makes it more difficult for the abrasive to mix and accelerate to full velocity. At lower concentrations the polymer allows the jet to breakup, but keeps the slugs of water together making energy transfer more efficient. Higher velocity abrasive means that less is required to achieve the same cutting performance as Walters and Saunders showed.

Figure 3. Effect of adding polymer in reducing the amount of abrasive required to cut stainless steel (after Walters, C.L., Saunders, D.H., "DIAJET Cutting for Nuclear Decommissioning," Paper J2, 10th International Symposium on Jet Cutting Technology, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October, 1990, pp. 427 - 440.)

At low levels of abrasive feed Dr Hashish has shown that increasing the amount of abrasive in the feed increases cutting performance.

Figure 4. Effect of increase in AFR on depth of cut in mild steel at a feed rate of 6 inches/min (After Dr. Hashish ibid), waterjet diameter 0.01 inches.

However, as the abrasive flow rate continues to increase the cutting performance reaches a plateau and can decline, as Dr. Hashish illustrated. An AFR of 20 gm/sec is equivalent to a feed of 2.6 lb/minute.

Figure 5. The effect of higher AFR on cutting depth at 3 jet pressures on a mild steel target (after Dr. Hashish ibid)

Note that in this case the nozzle geometry was not optimized for operation at the highest jet pressure. More visibly we ran a series of cuts across a granite sample, where the only thing that changed between cuts was that we increased the abrasive feed rate in cuts from the left to the right. It can be seen that beyond a certain AFR the jet starts to cut to a shallower depth.

Figure 6. Successive cuts made into a granite block at increasing AFR from the left to the right.

Interestingly the optimum feed rate doesn’t just depend on the pressure and water flow rate (waterjet orifice size) of the system. Faber and Oweinah have shown that as the feed particle size gets larger, so the optimum AFR reduces.

Figure 7. Optimal Abrasive feed rate as a function of particle size (after Faber, K., Oweinah, H., "Influence of Process Parameters on Blasting Performance with the Abrasive Jet," paper 25, 10th International Symposium on Jet Cutting Technology, Amsterdam, October, 1990, pp. 365 - 384.)

The process of finding an optimal feed rate for a system is thus controlled by the design of the mixing chamber based on the relative position of the abrasive feed tube and the size of the waterjet orifice. This controls how well the abrasive that is fed into the system can mix with the jet and acquire the velocity that it needs for most effective cutting. Then, as the above plot shows, the optimal AFR is also influenced by the size of the particles that are being fed into the system, since as the particles become larger beyond a certain size, so the cutting effectiveness declines.

Part of the reason for this is that, as the AFR increases so there is an increased risk of particle to particle impact breaking the particles down into smaller sizes. (And an earlier post showed that smaller particles cut less effectively – as does figure 7 above). We screened the particles that came from several different designs of AWJ nozzle assemblies capturing them after they left the nozzle but without further impact, so that the size range is indicative of that which a target material would see,

The table is a summary of some of the results and it shows results for a feed that began at 250 microns giving the percentage of the particles that survived at larger than 100 microns.

Figure 8. Percentage of the 250 micron sized feed that survives at above 100 micron for differing jet conditions. (the numbers are averaged from several tests).

It can be seen that when the feed rate rises to 1.5 lb a minute that there is a drop in abrasive size at higher jet pressures, and this is likely to be due to the increased interaction with particles. Since cutting effectiveness is controlled by particle size, count and velocity the only slightly greater amount of particles that survive above 100 microns at 1.5 lb/minute relative to those that survive at 1 lb/minute suggest that spending the money to increase the AFR above the optimal value (in this case around 1 lb/min) is a wasted investment.

It is therefore important to tune the system to ensure that, for each jet pressure and nozzle design that is used, that the AFR has been optimized.

Waterjetting 11a - More thoughts on Abrasive

In the last post I mentioned that the abrasive particles, which are fed into a high-pressure waterjet stream to form the Abrasive WaterJet (AWJ) cutting tool, can be significantly crushed when mixing with the high-pressure waterjet, and before they leave the mixing chamber. Because of this - depending on the application - the choice of abrasive can play a significant role in how well the AWJ performs. I have mentioned a number of times that the Waterjet Lab is located at Missouri University of Science and Technology. That meant (apropos “show me”) that it was an appropriate place to run comparative tests between different abrasives to find which is the best.

It turns out that there is no one single answer to that question, since the abrasive that was the most economical and effective to use in one case does not necessarily give the best results in another. Which brings me to the first point in today’s post. It is relatively easy to get small samples of the different abrasives that might be used in a given job. Setting up a small series of test runs, in which the different abrasives being considered, are fed to the nozzle and use to cut standard cuts into test samples, is a relatively easy way to find out which is the best abrasive for that particular material and cutting path. However it is best not to use only a single test run, we would generally run a series with three different jet pressures and three different abrasive feed rates.

Figure 1. Table showing the change in optimal Abrasive Feed Rate (AFR) on cut depth at different pressures.

By bracketing the range that is likely to have the best concentration of abrasive for each pressure (which is not at the same abrasive feed rate, or AFR) the best result can be found for each different pressure value, and the most economical and effective choice for the task in hand can be quickly found. It is important to include economics in the evaluation, since there have been a number of cases we looked at where the most effective choice for abrasive in terms of giving the fastest clean cut was not that much more effective than the second place abrasive, and that alternative was sufficiently cheaper that it made more sense to use it.

The pricing of abrasive, however, is not something that it is easy to generalize over, since there are a number of different factors that come into play, depending where in the country you are located. As a rough guidance, however, we have found that garnet is a more universal cutting abrasive than most others, with less extraneous “issues”, and while it can be less effective than other selections in some conditions, in general it will cut more materials effectively and economically than its challengers. Further mined garnet, in general, performs better than alluvial garnet since it does not have the degree of damage within the particles that leads them to fragment more easily in the mixing chamber.

There are, however, more factors that just the abrasive type that have to be considered. There include the particle size, and range, and then, as noted in the table, there is the selection of the AFR to match the cutting conditions on the table.

One of the more neglected factors relates to the amount of air that is used to carry the abrasive from the hopper into the mixing chamber. The person who did more to shine a light into this corner of the technology was Tabitz, in France. (Tabitz, Schmidt, Parsy, Abriak, and Thery “Effect of Air on accceleration process in AWJ entrainment system, 12th ISJCT, Rouen, 1994 p 47 - 58.)

Because abrasive can cut into the parts of the flow meter, the equipment that they used included a trap between the hopper and the mixing chamber, where the particles could be collected, while the air passed forward to be measured and enter the mixing chamber.

Figure 2. Apparatus used by Tabitz in measuring the air flow to the cutting head and mixing chamber. (ibid)

The results from the measurement showed that as the jet pressure increased, so for that particular nozzle design, did the amount of air that was being drawn into the chamber – although you may note that it begins to reach a constant volume as the pressure approaches 280 MPa (40,000 psi).

Figure 3. Effect of increased jet pressure on the amount of air drawn into the nozzle, as a percentage of the total volume of the resulting jet. (Tabitz et al)

The problem that this relatively large volume of air presents is that it has to be accelerated at the same time as the energy in the jet is being transferred to the abrasive particles. The larger the amount of air in the mix, then the greater the amount of water energy that has to be diverted into accelerating the air. This leaves less energy available to accelerate the abrasive itself.

Tabitz modeled the result with a simulation in a computer program, which illustrates, for different abrasive feed rates, how the average abrasive particle velocity falls as the amount of air in the mix increases:

Figure 4. Simulated effect of an increase in air flow on the reduction in average abrasive particle velocity (after Tabitz et al).

Placing small instruments in front of abrasive-laden waterjets can lead to a relatively short life for those instruments, and measurements of actual particle velocities, though they have been made by a number of researchers, have not been as comprehensive as the above chart might indicate.

Nevertheless there is some indication that the above curves are accurate in principle, if not totally real. A jet with very little air might accelerate particles to 1,880 ft/sec, for example. However with 70% air in the mix, then the particle velocity might fall to 1,700 ft/sec, and with 95% of the jet made up of air, then the abrasive particle speed may fall to 1,200 ft/sec. Part of the difficulty in assessment is because of the very short time interval in which the abrasive particles are accelerated while in the mixing chamber. Because the rate of acceleration of the particles is inversely related to their size. Smaller particles are accelerated faster. And this is the counter to the point that was made in the last post about smaller particles cutter less efficiently than larger ones.

Part of the reason for this is that the smaller particles are decelerated faster in air than larger particles. The results of this in terms of cutting power is one of the areas that still requires more research. If, for example, smaller particles are used in an application (for example to achieve a finer detail in the surface cutting) then the effective range of the jet can become smaller than with larger particles. There are some caveats to that statement, and I will go into some of that explanation in the next post.