Water jet cutting, which is also called waterjet cutting, abrasive waterjet cutting, or sometimes mistakenly known as water jetting cutting, is a popular manufacturing process. As the name water jet implies, the cuts are made via a high-pressure jet of water (i.e. high pressure of 50,000-90,000 PSI or pounds per square inch). The machine pumps the liquid through a nozzle and out for the waterjet cutter to cut the part. The jet of water can be combined with an abrasive to cut metal or other hard substances (the abrasion creates the cut).
For softer materials such as rubber, the water jet can cut through the material without the need for an abrasive. The abrasive waterjet cutting service is common for cutting machined parts or flat sheet metal parts and the article below will help serve as a reference for those looking for information regarding waterjet cutting online. Waterjet cutting is a versatile process that can be used on a range of materials, shapes, and sizes of parts (for large parts, a flatbed water jet cutting machine is often most suitable). Waterjets are often CNC which allows for precise numerical control and repeatability.
In terms of cost, waterjet cutting services are notoriously cheap relative to some alternative options. While the machine hour rate is high, you can sometimes stack materials to double or triple output per unit of time. The major cost drivers for the machine – such as the abrasive, electricity, or wear and tear on the nozzle and other parts – are typically unavoidable, though the costs can be managed to reduce cost. Another cost driver is the nesting of the parts (e.g. how the parts fit on a sheet of metal to reduce scrap rates).
Waterjet cutting machines are typically automated, so this reduces the process cost. The tooling costs of lasers are obviously minimal compared to cutting coils or sheets of sheet metal via metal stamping. Low tooling costs imply that waterjet cutting is cost-effective – even for prototyping or low-volume production runs – given that you do not have a tooling cost amortized into piece prices or the cost of changing tools in between jobs as an added set-up cost.
However, if you are performing a make or buy analysis, keep in mind that the cost of the equipment is likely prohibitively expensive unless you can maintain a high utilization for the equipment with your existing part volumes. As such, many companies prefer to outsource to a waterjet cutting service provider. Comparing laser cutting to abrasive waterjet cutting, waterjet is often slower (and hence more expensive) in terms of the process itself, but abrasive waterjet cutting typically doesn’t need deburring for the rough edges as is often required by laser cutting.
Waterjet cutting can avoid the high temperatures of other processes, which can cause deformation in various plastic, aluminum, rubber, composites, or other materials – all of this done in a sanitary way. As such, custom waterjet cutting is frequently used for industries such as aerospace, agriculture, medical, food, or general industrial or manufacturing industries where aluminum or plastic parts are common.
In terms of types of parts, waterjet cutting is often used to produce custom rubber components, thick parts such as custom parts made from plates, and so on. Avoiding heat damage is an important benefit to waterjet cutting in order to meet specifications and hold tolerances for parts made of the aforementioned materials.
If the waterjet is set to a lower speed, then it can create more precise edges. The thickness of the material also impacts the edge finishes and taper. The waterjet cutting process is capable of cutting thick materials (e.g. several inches of metal) and also creating complex cuts.
The waterjet cutting service is a green, sustainable process. This is because the waterjet can reuse water repeatedly and it does not create hazardous waste (often created by other cutting processes). Because it doesn’t create hazardous waste, this also facilitates the recycling of scrap metal (the extra metal left from the sheet after the parts are cut out). There is little in terms of contaminants (e.g. dust or toxic gases) created as a by-product of waterjet cutting.
A waterjet cutting service provider will often have other complementary manufacturing processes in-house to handle the complete fabrication of a part. Also, one alternative process to abrasive waterjet cutting is laser cutting, which uses energy beams (radiation) to cut metal or other materials. Laser cutting has a higher degree of accuracy and generally higher speed than abrasive waterjet cutting but laser cutting is not typically used on certain materials or for thicker materials.
Laser cutting is also not ideal for high hardness materials – again since these are harder to cut and hence more suitable for abrasive waterjet cutting. For laser cutting, there are two types of lasers that are common – a fiber laser and a CO2 laser (carbon dioxide laser). The fiber laser is more precise, but the CO2 laser is sometimes used for thicker sheets of metal (though not as thick as for a custom waterjet cutting process).
Both fiber laser and abrasive waterjet cutting offer very low kerf sizes (kerf means the material is removed when cutting due to abrasion or evaporation). Other alternatives for cutting are EDM (electrical discharge machining) or plasma cutting. There are also ultra-high precision processes available, such as abrasive flow machining which can achieve extremely tight tolerances on the inside of parts.
For those looking for an online waterjet cutting service, please reach out to Pangea Technologies for a quick quote or free half-hour design advice. We are happy to provide a waterjet cutting quote or cater to your other custom part needs. We can also help select the most cost-effective and high-quality process for your parts given your specifications and design needs.