Investigation on kerf taper in abrasive waterjet machining of aluminium alloy 6061-T6

Abrasive waterjet (AWJ) is an advanced processing technology, which is favored by the processing industry due to its unique advantages. However, in the process of machining, the kerf taper produced by the attenuation of the jet energy seriously affects the processing accuracy of AWJ, which limits the further application and expansion of AWJ technology. In this paper, an experimental study on the kerf taper is carried out, and the influence of processing parameters including cutting speed, material thickness, water pressure and abrasive flow rate on the kerf taper is analyzed. The results show that the cutting speed and material thickness have a great influence on the kerf taper, while the influence of water pressure and abrasive flow on the kerf taper is not obvious. Reducing the cutting speed is conducive to the reduction of the kerf taper, and the kerf taper corresponding to the increase of the material thickness will decrease. On this basis, a kerf taper prediction model is established in this paper, and its effectiveness is verified through experiments. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Abrasive waterjet (AWJ) technology faces the issue of kerf taper during processing, affecting processing accuracy. This study finds that kerf taper is most influenced by cutting speed and material thickness, with water pressure and abrasive flow having minimal impact.