Visualization of Water Jet Cutting by Means of Ultrasonic Waves

It has been recognized from many investigations on water jet cutting mechanism that visualization of a cutting front is very effective to deepen understanding of the mechanism. However, an in-process visualization method, especially those applicable to opaque materials such as metals has not been established even now. This paper newly proposes a method of visualization of cutting front using ultrasonic waves. Several experiments have shown that in-process visualisation of a shape of the cutting front, inclination and profile waviness of cutting surface can be realized using the proposed method. Furthermore, this paper also proposes a water jet cutting process model based on detail analyses of visualization results.