Waterjet cutting - State of the art and future trends

Waterjet cutting is used in various fields and applications. Materials difficult to machine, small series production and complex geometry is easy to handle with this cutting process. Frozen food, leather and plastic as well as stone, glass and steel are materials which can be cut by waterjet or abrasive waterjet. The efficiency of the cutting technology is depending mainly on the pump system and the installed high pressure cutting equipment. Maximum working pressure, flow rate of water and the reliability of the high pressure pump influences flexibility, velocity and finally the costs of each cut. This paper presents the actual technical state of the art for waterjet cutting and gives an overview on cutting tests with ultra high pressure up to 800 MPa.