A study of Abrasive Waterjet (AWJ) cutting of metallic coated sheet steels is presented based on a statistically designed experiment. It shows that AWJ cutting is a viable technology for processing metallic coated sheet steels with good productivity and kerf quality. A scanning electron microscopy analysis indicates that micromachining and plastic deformation are the dominant cutting phenomena in sheet steel processing. Plausible trends and relationships between kerf characteristics and process parameters are discussed. It is found that an optimum water pressure together with small standoff distance between the nozzle and workpiece may be used, while the traverse speed should be selected as high as possible for through cuts in order to increase the cutting rate. Empirical models for kerf geometry and quality are finally established for the prediction and optimization of AWJ cutting performance.
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