ABSTRACT
In recent years many new materials have been developed. These materials include titanium alloys, hast alloys, nimonic alloys, composites etc. These materials are used in space crafts, nuclear reactors, special cutting tools, turbine injectors etc. These new materials cannot be accurately machined by the conventional machining processes. Abrasive waterjet cutting is superior to many other non-traditional machining processes in processing variety of materials, particularly difficult-to-cut materials and has found extensive applications in industry. Abrasive waterjet cutting process incurs relatively higher initial investment, maintenance and operating costs. Therefore optimum choice of the process parameters is essential for the economic, efficient and effective utilization of this process. In this research work both experimental and theoretical studies have been undertaken to investigate the effects process parameters namely, water pressure, nozzle traverse speed, abrasive mass flow rates and standoff distance on depth of cut in abrasive waterjet cutting of borosilicate glass. It was experimentally demonstrated that the good cutting performance can be achieved by selecting the right combination of process parameters.
