Modelling of Turning Operation for Abrasive Waterjets

New developments of innovative materials and higher requirements in industrial production create needs for both flexible and universal machining methods. Especially when machining very hard materials or compounds the abrasive waterjet qualifies as the tool of choice in many applications. So far industrial use of abrasive waterjet was focused on sheet cutting operation. With higher complexity of industrial product also geometrical requirements increase. Here the abrasive waterjet offers a wide range of possibilities for complete machining. Besides 5-axis machining also turning operations c an be used for near net shaping with the same tool even for different materials. So far adaptive control strategies for machining optimization were not available, though. In this paper new empirical approaches to process modelling of the abrasive waterjet process are developed. The turning operation is used here to obtain empirical information about the effect of the very particle impact. So better un derstanding of the abrasive waterjet process can be expected resulting in control and optimization algorithms to improve quality and performance of the process.