Title: Machinability of glass by abrasive waterjet

Authors: H.T. Zhu, C.Z. Huang, J. Wang, X.Y. Lu, Y.X. Feng

Addresses: Centre for Advanced Jet Engineering Technologies (CaJET), School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University (SDU), Jinan, China. ' Centre for Advanced Jet Engineering Technologies (CaJET), School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University (SDU), Jinan, China. ' School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. ' Center for Advanced Jet Engineering Technologies (CaJET), School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University (SDU), Jinan, China. ' Center for Advanced Jet Engineering Technologies (CaJET), School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University (SDU), Jinan, China

Abstract: Thin glass plate is usually used to make some important components such as glass substrate, coated glass plate and so forth. However, glass is known as one of the difficult-to-machine materials using conventional machining processes because of its high hardness and brittleness. The Abrasive Water Jet (AWJ) is a non-conventional machining technology, which has been used for cutting a variety of difficult-to-machine materials such as ceramics and composites. In the present study, a kind of thin glass plate was machined with an abrasive waterjet to investigate its machinability under varying cutting conditions. Machinability was evaluated in terms of kerf width and the process parameters were optimised for obtaining a small kerf width.

Keywords: abrasive waterjet machining; erosion; glass machinability; orthogonal tests; range analysis; abrasive waterjets; AWJ; thin glass plate; kerf width; process parameters; cutting.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.2008.015901

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 2008 Vol.31 No.1, pp.106 - 112

Published online: 02 Dec 2007 *

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