Abrasive Water Jet Cutting of Borosilicate Glass

Abrasive Water Jet Machining (AWJM) process has potential to cut a wide range of materials. Researchers did a number of experiments on cutting of different grades of steel, copper, aluminium, 87% alumina ceramics, Ti6Al4 V, different types of stone etc by AWJM. Though, applicability of AWJM on crystalline materials is established, yet no such work is found on amorphous materials. Borosilicate glass is one of the most regularly used amorphous engineering materials. Brittleness of this glass puts limitation on its machining by conventional machining processes. In this article, experiments are conducted on cutting of borosilicate glass by AWJM. Depth of cut is measured with different machine parameter settings – water pressure, abrasive flow rate, traverse speed and standoff distance. Model, thus developed, on depth of cut gives an idea of the influence of different parameters on cutting of amorphous borosilicate glass by AWJM. Optimum condition of control parameter setting is also searched through particle swarm optimization (PSO). In addition, scanning electron microscopic image reveals to some extent, the nature of cut surface and erosion behaviour of amorphous material qualitatively.