Multiphase Flow and Wear in the Cutting Head of Ultra-high Pressure Abrasive Water Jet

Abrasive water jet cutting technology is widely applied in the materials processing today and attracts great attention from scholars, but many phenomena concerned are not well understood, especially in the internal jet flow of the cutting head at the condition of ultra-high pressure. The multiphase flow in the cutting head is numerically simulated to study the abrasive motion mechanism and wear inside the cutting head at the pressure beyond 300 MPa. Visible predictions of the particles trajectories and wear rate in the cutting head are presented. The influences of the abrasive physical properties, size of the jewel orifice and the operating pressure on the trajectories are discussed. Based on the simulation, a wear experiment is carried out under the corresponding pressures. The simulation and experimental results show that the flow in the mixing chamber is composed of the jet core zone and the disturbance zone, both affect the particles trajectories. The mixing efficiency drops with the increase of the abrasive granularity. The abrasive density determines the response of particles to the effects of different flow zones, the abrasive with medium density gives the best general performance. Increasing the operating pressure or using the jewel with a smaller orifice improves the coherency of p articles trajectories but increases the wear rate of the jewel holder at the same time. Walls of the jewel holder, the entrance of the mixing chamber and the convergence part of the mixing tube are subject to wear out. The computational and experimental results give a qualitative consistency which proves that this numerical method can provide a reliable and visible cognition of the flow characteristics of ultra-high pressure abrasive water jet. The investigation is benefit for improving the machining properties of water jet cutting systems and the optimization design of the cutting head.

Energy Consumption in Comminution of Mica with Cavitation Abrasive Water Jet

We have studied the efficiency of energy consumption in the comminution of mica powder with cavitation abrasive water jet technology. The energy required to create new surfaces in the comminution of mica powder with cavitation abrasive water jet was calculated,in order to estimate its efficiency of energy consumption. The particle size distribution and the specific surface area were measured by applying a JEM-200CX transmission electron microscope and an Autosorb-1 automatic surface area analyzer. The study results show that the efficiency of energy consumed in creating new surface areas is as high as 2.92%,or 4.94% with the aid of cavitation in the comminution of mica powder. This efficiency will decrease with an increase in the number of comminutions. After three comminutions,the efficien-cies will become 1.91% and 2.29% for comminution without cavitation and with cavitation,respectively. The abrasive water jet technology is an effective way for comminution of mica powder.

Performance of recycling abrasives in rock cutting by abrasive water jet

Rock cutting performance of recycling abrasives was investigated in terms of cutting depth, kerf width, kerf taper angle and surface roughness. Gravity separation technique was employed to separate the abrasives and the rock particles. The recycling abrasive particles were then dried and sieved for determination of their disintegration behaviors. Before each cutting with recycling abrasives, the abrasive particles less than 106 ?m were screened out. It is revealed that a considerable amount of used abrasives can be effectively reused in the rock cutting. The reusabilities of abrasives are determined as 81.77%, 57.50%, 34.37% and 17.72% after the first, second, third and fourth cuttings, respectively. Additionally, it is determined that recycling must be restricted three times due to the excessive disintegration of abrasives with further recycling. Moreover, it is concluded that cutting depth, kerf width and surface roughness decreases with recycling. No clear trend is found between the kerf taper angle and recycling. Particle size distribution is determined as an important parameter for improving the cutting performance of recycling abrasives.

Comminution of Mica by Cavitation Abrasive Water Jet

The comminution of mica with an abrasive water jet is mainly based on three knids of effects, that is, high-speed collision, cavitating effect and shearing effect. Cavitation abrasive water jet was applied for the comminution of mica because cavitation abrasive water jet can make full use of the three effects mentioned above. Besides high speed impacting among particles,cavitation and shearing were also enhanced due to the divergent angle at the outlet of the cavitation nozzle.A JME-200CX transmission electron microscope was used for observing the size distribution of particles.Variance analysis on the experimental results indicates that the effect of cavitation is much more significant than that of collision.The effect of pressure on comminution results becomes less with the decrease of the particle size.

Orthogonal design of experiment and analysis of abrasive water jet cutting on carbon fiber reinforced composites

The carbon fiber reinforced composite is a new type of composite material with an excellent property in strength and elastic modulus,and has found extensive applications in aerospace,energy,automotive industry and so on.However,this composite has a strict requirement on processing techniques,for example,brittle damage or delamination often exists in conventional processing techniques.Abrasive water jet machining technology is a new type of green machining technique with distinct advantages such as high-energy and thermal distortion free.The use of abrasive water jet technique to process carbon fiber composite materials has become a popular trend since it can significantly improve the processing accuracy and surface quality of carbon fiber composite materials.However,there are too many parameters that affect the quality of an abrasive water jet machining.At present,few studies are carried out on the parameter optimization of such a machining process,which leads to the unstable quality of surface processing.In this paper,orthogonal design of experiment and regression analysis were employed to establish the empirical model between cutting surface roughness and machining process parameters.Then a verified model was used to optimize the machining process parameters for abrasive water jet cutting carbon fiber reinforced composites.

Study on the influence of standoff distance on substrate damage under an abrasive water jet process by molecular dynamics simulation

The process of a cluster-containing water jet impinging on a monocrystalline silicon substrate was studied by molecular dynamics simulation. The results show that as the standoff distance increases, the jet will gradually diverge. As a result, the solidified water film between the cluster and the substrate becomes "thicker" and "looser". The "thicker" and "looser" water film will then consume more input energy to achieve complete solidification, resulting in the stress region and the high-pressure region of the silicon substrate under small standoff distances to be significantly larger than those under large standoff distances. Therefore, the degree of damage sustained by the substrate will first experience a small change and then decrease quickly as the standoff distance increases. In summary, the occurrence and maintenance of complete solidification of the confined water film between the cluster and the substrate plays a decisive role in the level of damage formation on the silicon substrate. These findings are helpful for exploring the mechanism of an abrasive water jet.

Air flow exploration of abrasive feed tube

An abrasive water-jet cutting process is one in which water pressure is raised to a very high pressure and forced through a very small orifice to form a very thin high speed jet beam. This thin jet beam is then directed through a chamber and then fed into a secondary nozzle, or mixing tube. During this process, a vacuum is generated in the cham- ber, and garnet abrasives and air are pulled into the chamber, through an abrasive feed tube, and mixes with this high speed stream of water. Because of the restrictions introduced by the abrasive feed tube geometry, a vacuum gradient is generated along the tube. Although this phenomenon has been recog- nized and utilized as a way to monitor nozzle condition and abrasive flowing conditions, yet, until now, conditions inside the abrasive feed line have not been completely understood. A possible reason is that conditions inside the abrasive feed line are complicated. Not only compressible flow but also multi- phase, multi-component flow has been involved in inside of abrasive feed tube. This paper explored various aspects of the vacuum creation process in both the mixing chamber and the abrasive feed tube. Based on an experimental exploration, an analytical framework is presented to allow theoretical calculations of vacuum conditions in the abrasive feed tube.

A new method of combined rock drilling

Based on the technologies of traditionally mechanical drilling and water jet,we propose a new method of abrasive water jet in combination with rock drilling,and establish a combined rock drilling system for the gas pre-drainage.This study chose the common sandstone and silicon limestone as the rock sample.A series of experiments were completed in the case of dry drilling,existing technology drilling,combined drilling with high pressure water jet and combined drilling with abrasive water jet,respectively.The drilling efficiency and performance were contrasted and analyzed in detail.The results indicate that it is better to choose the method of combined drilling with the high-pressure water jet for soft rocks.The method of combined drilling with abrasive water jet is feasible for the hard rock drilling and has higher drilling efficiency and performance.In this paper,compared with the existing technology,the drilling depth has increased by about 65%,the axial force and torque have reduced by about 14%and 17%,respectively,and the drill wear reduces obviously in the same conditions.

Effect of cavitation on comminution of mica powder

The cavitation abrasive water jet was used in the comminution ofmica. By applying a cavitation nozzle in the abrasive water jetsystem to enhance the effect of cavitation and friction, bettercomminution results were obtained. The JME-200CX transmission elec-tron microscope was used for observing the size distribution ofparticles. As using cavitation abrasive water jet, the relativecomminution effect is raised by more than 25/100 compared with usingabrasive water jet only. It can be concluded that the effect ofcavitation is much more significant than that of impacting in thecomminution of mica.

Research and applications of novel jet techniques in well drilling,completion and fracturing

Oil and gas have long been regarded as key elements for any industrialized country.China's economy and social security are largely dependent on oil and gas exploration and development.Nowadays,a great deal of attention has been paid to various ways of efficiently developing oil and gas reserves.This paper presents an overview of research and applications of novel jet techniques in well-drilling,well-completion and fracturing.Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China,through years of effort,significant achievements have been made in this area.Not only has the systematic theory of novel jetting been established,but also its application has been proved practical in petroleum engineering.This paper focuses on the topics of the self-resonating cavitating jet,the abrasive water jet,and the supercritical CO_2 jet,in respect of theories,applications and prospects.