Waterjetting 25a - choosing jet parameters for range.

The range over which a waterjet is able to cut material can widely quite significantly, depending on a wide range of factors, including abrasive content. An earlier post described the way in which students in a waterjet class were shown some of the difficulties in assessing risks arising from the use of a waterjet, and the range over which it was dangerous. Simplistically the students first cut along a plywood panel to see how far from the nozzle the jet would remove wood.

Figure 1. By slightly tilting the 4-ft wide panel and then having students move the jet past the board along the left-hand edge, a measure of the range of the jet could be obtained.

However, after the students had decided that, for the 10,000 psi 0.03-inch diameter jet, the cutting range was about ¾ of the way across the width (i.e. 3 ft) they were then tasked to pass the jet, as fast as they could, over a piece of pork that was at least a foot further away from where they estimated the distance that the jet stopped cutting.

Figure 2. A piece of pork after being “sliced” by a 10,000 psi waterjet.

The pork was typically cut to a depth of over an inch, grooving into the bone at a distance that the student had previously decided was “safe.” It was pointed out to the class that the pork was a good simulator for human flesh.

The point of the demonstration was fairly obvious, but it does highlight that the distance at which a jet stops cutting one material because of insufficient energy, may still be quite a distance closer than that critical distance for other softer materials.

In one of the earlier scientific papers on waterjet cutting Leach and Walker plotted the drop in jet pressure from two different nozzle shapes, against the distance from the nozzle.

Figure 3. Decline in jet pressure with distance from the nozzle (Leach and Walker)

With poorer nozzle designs and in cutting many harder materials the critical distance at which the jet pressure falls below half the original pressure, and thus in many materials stops cutting, is at around 125 nozzle diameters. For a 0.03-inch diameter jet, cutting a distance of 36 inches takes the range to 1,200 diameters. And while that range is partly because we have significantly improved the fluid flow into the nozzle it relates, as noted, also to the strength of the material being cut.

One reason to mention this is that I have seen, both in photos and real life, people foolish enough to hold their hands in front of a 40,000 psi waterjet, as an illustration of the safety of the tool at even a short range. (Typically they were using jets of around 0.006 inches diameter with the hand about a foot from the nozzle). A slight increase in nozzle diameter, undetected by the operator, or a change in fluid content (such as by adding a long-chain polymer (such as Superwater) could extend the range of the jet several-fold, so that the unsuspecting operator might lose several fingers before realizing the change in conditions.

An earlier post described the work of Clark Barker and Bruce Selberg, who demonstrated that an increase in polish of the inner surfaces and a smooth transition path into the orifice could extend the cutting range of a jet in harder materials from 125 diameters to over 2,000.

Achieving a smooth flow path to the orifice is critical to superior performance, though – as I have mentioned before – it was at one time surprising to me how many contractors did not even have the nozzle insert mating with the end of the supply pipe. Rather, with the nozzle insert held in a holder, they just turned the latter until it was tight, not always achieving contact between the back of the nozzle insert and the pipe. In addition there have been many cases I have seen where the nozzle insert inlet diameter differs from that of the internal diameter of the connecting pipe Again this will interfere with performance away from the nozzle.

Assuming, however, that one has stabilized the flow into the nozzle, and that it is of the right shape, how can one increase the jet throw distance further? The obvious, and wrong, answer is to up the pressure that is driving the jet.

Why is this the wrong answer? Well, if one considers what happens when a jet shoots out into the air, as one can see in a high-speed flash photograph:

Figure 4. Flash photograph (exposure at about one-millionth of a second) of a high speed waterjet showing the structure.

As the jet travels through the air, so the relatively stationary air around the jet strips off, and decelerates, the jet in layers starting from the outside. These show up as backward pointing stringers flowing out from the main jet stream. As the outer layers are peeled off (as with stripping the layers from an onion) so the remaining diameter gets less until, as in the picture above, there is no jet left.

Consider that with a higher driving pressure that there is a greater differential between the air speed and that of the jet, and obviously the stripping action will occur more rapidly, reducing the overall range of the jet.

Now consider if, instead of putting that additional power into pressure/jet velocity one were, instead to put it into additional flow. Then there are more layers of the jet to strip away, and the differential is not as great. As a result, when one compares the performance of two jets one gets:

Figure 5. Comparing the performance of two jets.

Notice in this case that relatively close to the nozzle the two jets, cut to roughly the same depth, and in this range the higher pressure, smaller jet has advantages in that the thrust it applies to the holding tool is less, and the total amount of water used is also less (roughly 4.3 gpm rather than 7.3 gpm). However if one is cutting at a greater standoff distance between the wall and the target, then at about 4 ft from the nozzle (1000 diameters of the larger, 1500 diameters of the smaller) the lower pressured, higher flow rate jet becomes more effective.

This relative change in nozzle effectiveness with pressure and diameter was also reported from results at lower pressure when developing nozles for cutting coal in Germany.

Figure 6. Comparing the pressure profiles of jets at two different diameters and pressures, as a function of distance from the nozzle.(Benedum et al)

Note that here, again, at about 8 m from the nozzles, both jets are producing about the same impact pressure, while closer to the nozzle the smaller (blue line) jet has a better profile (at 0.78 inch diameter, and 1,300 psi) than the larger (black line) jet (at 1-inch diameter, and 1,000 psi). But at greater distances the lower pressure, larger diameter jet becomes more effective.

There is, in short, significant benefit to determining, before one starts, what the objective is and over what range the jet is expected to cut, since both will help decide what set of jet operating conditions will give the better result.

References Leach, S.J., and Walker, G.L., "Some Aspects of Rock Cutting by High Speed Water Jets," Phil. Trans. Royal Society, London, Vol. 260A, pp. 295 - 308.
Barker, C.R. and Selberg, B.P., "Water Jet Nozzle Performance Tests", paper A1, 4th International Symposium on Jet Cutting Technology, Canterbury, UK, April, 1978.
Benedum, W., Harzer, H., and Maurer, H., "The Development and Performance of two Hydromechanical Large Scale workings in the West German Coal Mining Industry," paper J2, Proc. 2nd Int. Symp. Jet Cutting Tech., BHRA.

Waterjetting 5d - Fitting the nozzle to the system

Buying a high-pressure system requires a significant amount of money, and, as a result, most folk will make a serious attempt at comparing the quality of the different systems that they are considering buying, before they make that choice. Most of the expense goes into that part of the system that sits behind the nozzle, and which supplies the water and (where needed) the abrasive that form the cutting/cleaning system.

Often, however, while the upstream system is the subject of such scrutiny, the nozzles themselves, and the selection of abrasive often escape this level of evaluation. Both of these “parts” of the system are part of the wear cost of operations, and, as a result, the selection of the “best’ nozzle often involves operational cost considerations, with less emphasis on comparative evaluations of performance. To explain this most brutally, a company may spend $250,000 on a system, but then degrade the performance of that system by over 50% by choosing a nozzle system that saves the company 15% on purchase costs over that of a competitor. (I will show figures in a later post on this topic).

In the next few posts I am going to explain some of the tests that we, and others, have run to compare nozzle performance, and some of the results that we found. I don’t intend to “name names” because the tests that I will talk about are specific to certain specific objectives, and the reason that you are running a system will likely differ from the conditions and the performance parameters that we needed to match for some specific jobs. The evaluations will range over a number of different applications and will cover some quite expensive tests, as well as some very simple ones that can be run at little cost in time or money.

But, to begin, the first question relates to how you attach the nozzle to the end of the supply pipe. Here you are, if you have followed the train of thought of the last two posts on conditioning the water as it leaves the supply pipe, through a long lead section, or through a set of flow conditioning tubes, the water is nicely collimated and (as I will show) could under certain circumstances have a throw distance of perhaps 2,000 jet diameters or so. Yet the average jet has an effective distance of around 125 jet diameters. Why the difference? An illustrative sketch from Bruce Selberg and Clark Barker*, simply makes the point.

Figure 1. Comparison between a typical nozzle attachment and one where the flow channel is smoothed. (Barker and Selberg)

Right up to the point where the small focusing nozzle is attached to the pipe on the left (a) the flow has been conditioned to give a good jet. But then, just as the flow starts to enter into the acceleration cone in the nozzle it hits the little step at the lip of the nozzle where it attaches to the pipe.

As I will mention in a later post, when a jet hits a flat surface and can’t penetrate then it will flow out laterally along that surface. (This also happens with wind, and is why places such as Chicago are referred to as "The Windy City.") So the outer layer of the jet hits the lip, and where does it go? It runs right into the path of the central flowing jet into the nozzle and mixes right across it. So much for stable flow, that lateral disturbance turns the flow turbulent, so that it is rapidly dissipated once it gets out of the nozzle. Professors Selberg and Barker calculated the theoretical pressure of the jet coming out of the orifices, and compared it with pressure values that they measured.

Figure 2. Measured pressure profiles plotted against the theoretical pressure (small crosses) at different distances from a typical conventional nozzle with two orifices.

In comparison, as a way of ensuring that the flow path into the two orifices was smooth, the two authors added a small section made of brass between the end of the pipe and the entrance to the nozzle body ((b) in Figure 1). They inserted two pins to fit into alignment holes drilled into the end of the pipe, in the insert, and in the nozzle body itself.

Figure 3. Construction of a feed section between the nozzle body and the feed pipe to stabilize the flow (Barker and Selberg)

When the pressure profiles were taken with one of the new set of nozzles, the difference, as a function of distance, was quite marked.

Figure 4. Profiles from the nozzle design shown in (b) with a two-part nozzle (Barker and Selberg. Note that the standoff distance has increased for the two sets of profiles over that in Figure 2.

Further, when the depth of cut was measured after the jets were fired into blocks of Berea Sandstone at various distances from the nozzle, the improved performance was clear out to even further distances.

Figure 5. Depths of cut into blocks of Berea sandstone as a function of distance from the nozzle, at two flow conditions (Barker and Selberg)

The addition of the flow channeling section does make the nozzle a little longer, and the cone angle of the inside of the nozzle was continued out to the diameter of the feed pipe to reduce any steps that might induce turbulence. In addition the inside of both the transition section and the nozzle were polished to a surface finish of better than 6-microinches.

The nozzles themselves were specially constructed for us using electro-formed nickel on flame-polished mandrels and were thus quite expensive. Our particular purpose, however, was in the development of a mining machine that, with the nozzles that we used, was able to peel off a slab of coal, to the height of the seam, and to a depth of 3 ft, at a rate of advance of at least 10 ft/minute. (A later design in Germany went over 6 times as fast, when operated underground).

The advance rate was achievable because the jets were cutting a slot consistently about 2 ft ahead of the machine, and with two jets the coal between them was washed out without having to be mined. But that is a subject for a different post a t some time in the future.

Before I leave the subject, however, some folk might comment that their nozzles sit in holders that are then threaded onto the end of the pipe – thus they should be in alignment, and they are tightened until the holder is tight on the pipe. There are two caveats with this, the first is that this does not necessarily mean that the entry into the nozzle smoothly butts up against the end of the pipe, and in alignment with it. (Hence our use of pins.) In field visits we have measured, for other operators, the relative distances involved, and found that there can be a gap between the end of the nozzle body, and the end of the pipe, both contained within the holder. Even though the two diameters are the same, the presence of the larger chamber before the entry into the nozzle will again create turbulence and a poor jet.

The fix in both cases is a small transition piece, which is simple to design and insert to fill that gap, and smooth the passage. Though it does bring with it the second caveat. You need to make sure that the number of threads of engagement of the holder on the pipe remain enough so that the holder won’t blow off if the nozzle blocks. (One time one of ours did, but it was in a remote location, so thankfully no-one was hurt, although there was some damage as a result).

In the next post I will start to discuss the different ways that we have used, after the nozzle is in place, to make sure that the jets were doing what they were designed to and producing a jet of the quality needed.

* The information that I used in this article can be found, in more detail, in the paper: Barker, C.R. and Selberg, B.P., "Water Jet Nozzle Performance Tests", paper A1, 4th International Symposium on Jet Cutting Technology, Canterbury, UK, April, 1978.