When a shop decides to take advantage of waterjet cutting machines, he realizes cost saving for a number of reasons. One of these is that waterjet cutting generates no net heat on the target material, eliminating warping and distortion in the No Heat Affected Zone (HAZ). This eliminates the need for a second pass to correct the effects of the warping.
The use of water also deals with the problem of removing the particles ground away from the target material. For many materials and processes, this requires an elaborate vacuum system to capture the particles and keep them away from the surrounding area and the operator. Due to the inefficiency of this system, operators are often still required to wear industrial spec breathing and filtering apparatus as well as specialized eyewear. This is particularly true for certain materials such as granite, which generate dust that can cause fatal conditions to the human respiratory system. With a waterjet system, the particulates are efficiently captures by the water stream and carried away. The logistical and health concerns of the other methods are not present with the waterjet.
However, one of the most efficient cost-savings features of Waterjet cutting machines is the ability to do common line cutting. This has to do with how waste material is generated. As an example, if you cut circles from a stainless steel plate, then the areas surrounding the circles are all waste. Sometimes this extra material can be reprocessed and recovered. However, in any case, the waste has some expense attached. Now consider the example of cutting a set of rectangles from a steel plate. Obviously, the best method to reduce waste is to place the rectangles in the most efficient layout, then have them share cutting borders. The border sharing is known as the common line.
Determining the common line for waterjet cutting machines is a little tricky. The width of removed material known as the kerf must be taken into account. Depending on the material and cutting speed, the kerf lies within the range of 20 to 50 mils. To control these factors, specialized software is used to control the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) processor, to allow shapes to share borders. This technique cannot be easily realized with laser or plasma cutters.
This software also allows nesting, the ability to drive several cutting heads at the same time. This can create simultaneous cuts of the same pattern.
Wardjet provides waterjet cutting machines that reduce the amount of wasted material and optimize cost savings for your projects.