Machinability of glass by abrasive waterjet

Thin glass plate is usually used to make some important components such as glass substrate, coated glass plate and so forth. However, glass is known as one of the difficult-to-machine materials using conventional machining processes because of its high hardness and brittleness. The Abrasive Water Jet (AWJ) is a non-conventional machining technology, which has been used for cutting a variety of difficult-to-machine materials such as ceramics and composites. In the present study, a kind of thin glass plate was machined with an abrasive waterjet to investigate its machinability under varying cutting conditions. Machinability was evaluated in terms of kerf width and the process parameters were optimised for obtaining a small kerf width.