OPTIMIZATION OF ABRASIVE WATERJET MACHINING PROCESS PARAMETERS.

Currently, more than 50 000 different construction materials are available on the market and that number is increasing. Many new materials are often difficult to machine with conventional methods that are currently dominating in production facilities, so the industry is more and more turning to non-traditional machining processes such as abrasive waterjet cutting (AWJC). With the exceptional capabilities that it provides, abrasive waterjet cutting has disadvantages such as surface roughness and striation marks on the cutting surface, which represents a limitation for further application in production. The experimental part of the paper focuses on the verification of the thesis whether conventional material process technologies can be replaced with the abrasive waterjet cutting technology under certain conditions, while maintaining the required quality of the machined surface and productivity. An analysis of the influence of the selected cutting parameters and an optimization of the model was performed on the specimens from the AISI 316L steel on the cutting depth of 25 mm. The results obtained by optimization showed that abrasive waterjet cutting can replace conventional technologies and achieve the required values of the machined surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]