PROCESSES SPECIFIC INFORMATION PAGES (COMING SOON)

Water Jet	Router	Laser
Welding	Materials Handling	Carbon Fiber
Plastics	SMC	Metals
Success Stories	Success Stories	Success Stories

Robotic WaterJet (water-jet)

"also check out the video pages"

What is WaterJet: Waterjet cutting involves passing water through a small diameter nozzle at very high pressure. The jet travels at a speeds up to 900 m/sec, with sufficient kinetic energy to cut a wide range of materials. If sand is added, an abrasive affect occurs that allows the waterjet to cut hard materials such as metal and stone.

The flexibility of our robotic systems enable manufacturers to make the most of their capital investment. Trimming programs can easily be changed or added so that several parts can be cut on the same system with virtually no set-up time. All of our trimming solutions are safe, cost-effective and highly productive.

The Power Of Water For Trimming

Pure and Abrasive Waterjet Cutting Systems: Pure waterjet is particularly well suited for cutting and trimming of soft materials like plastics, textiles, non-woven's, and foams. In some cases pure water is also applicable for trimming of harder materials like SMC and fiberglass-based composites.

Abrasive waterjet is particularly well suited for cutting and trimming of hard materials such as metals, stone and advanced composites.

The type of process and system you finally choose depends on many things such as the size and geometry of the part to be trimmed, variety of parts, required cycle times, plant environment and of course, your budget and goals.

Contact our sales organization and tell us about your requirements. Go to our About/Contact us page.

How It Works: The high-pressure waterjet is used as a tool to cut a wide range of materials. These materials include,

The fine jet is very powerful, with cutting speeds between 100 and 500 mm/s for a variety of automotive and non-automotive parts. An example is Automotive carpets that can be cut from 100 to 500 mm/sec and for headliners from 300 to 500 mm/sec. In most of these cases, the materials do not have time to absorb the water and remain relatively dry.

The energy required for cutting materials is obtained by pressurizing water to ultra-high pressures and forming an intense cutting stream by focusing this high-speed water through a small, precious-stone orifice. The stream moves at a velocity of up to 900 m/s, depending on how the water pressure is exerted.

The process is applicable to both water only and abrasive jets. For abrasive cutting applications, abrasive garnet is fed into the abrasive mixing chamber, which is part of the cutting head body, to produce a coherent and an extremely energetic abrasive jet stream.

Working pressure up to 4.200 bar: The inlet water is filtered and if necessary treated to reach the recommended quality before entering the high-pressure intensifier.

An electrically driven hydraulic pump (12 to 75 kW) is used to pressurize the process water with a double acting intensifier. The pressure peaks caused by the plunger reversing its direction at the end of each stroke are reduced by the attenuator connected to the high-pressure outlet line. The operating pressure lies between 3.000 and 4.000 bar, depending on the application.

The robot mounted cutting head contains both the air actuated on/off valve and the sapphire/diamond orifice. Its diameter is commonly 0,15 to 0,35 mm. A special mixing chamber with a focusing nozzle is needed when abrasive is added to the water.

Flexible cutting technology: Cutting routines for complicated 3D shapes that would be impossible to punch can easily be programmed with the robot.

The standoff distance between the nozzle and the part to be cut is about 25 to 50 mm. After it has cut through the work-piece, the jet turns into a spray and immediately loses its cutting power.

TBD Enterprises can support your waterjet needs: We can provide both robotic and non robotic waterjet systems. We can integrate waterjet into a variety of robot platforms; Fanuc, Motoman, and ABB, as examples. We are partnered with integrators of waterjet cutting and trimming machines and systems. We can provide solutions for both abrasive waterjet and non-abrasive waterjet. Whether you need full automation of a waterjet system or not, we are the experienced waterjet cutting team for you. Contact us.