[rbjem]

Hi everyone,

I have been tasked with designing a custom dedicated waterjet setup at my work. We will be cutting only round parts ranging in diameter from 7" to 13".

The idea is to have a stationary water jet head (40ksi jet) shoot into a 55 gallon drum. It will have one linear axis and a rotary axis mounted to that, so the part will travel straight inward to the jet, then rotate 360, and return to be unloaded.

I have no experience with waterjets and as such, dont really know what will work for the water tank and baffle system. I've searched and cant come up with info or pics of how are commercial waterjet baffle systems built.

Our design has one major difference though; the jet will be stationary and therefore, will be continually wearing a hole in one location rather than distributing the wear over a large tank.

The leading idea I have is to take a thick steel plate and mount it inside the 55gal drum at a steep angle to increase the effective thickness as seen by the jet. However, I'm not sure how much the jet will begin to diverge after impinging on the plate, and if it will still continue to cut through the next surface (another singular point on the wall of the 55gal drum) that it encounters. Good idea/bad idea?

Any insight or ideas would be much appreciated.

[rbjem]

I was discussing this with my coworker this morning and we came up with a few other ideas.

1. Put bricks or solid cinder blocks in the bottom of the tank. these are cheap and easily replaceable.

2. Put a bucket of marbles in the tank. As they are worn away they would fall inward towards the jet. This could also be done with steel balls.

This leads me to wonder if there is there a material that is eroded more slowly than others? Would ceramic be better than hardened steel or glass or carbide?