Waterjet cutting offers unparalleled accuracy, versatility, and customization for your custom fabrication and manufacturing needs. With Aquajet’s waterjet service, you have the option to work with a wide range of materials — including soft materials like rubber or foam, brittle materials like stone and ceramic, and all types of metals — to turn your designs and sketches into the products and components you need for your business. The waterjet cutting process suits the needs of a variety of industry specifications and requirements.
Waterjet Cutting Industries Served
Thanks to its versatility, waterjet cutting serves a wide array of industries. Here are just some of the industries that rely heavily on waterjet cutting:
- Aerospace – Thermal damage from other industrial cutting processes would affect the integrity of aerospace components. With no heat-affected zone or work-hardened zone at the cut faces, manufacturers in the aerospace field can cut components without harming the intrinsic properties and durability of materials like superalloys, carbon fiber, titanium, and more.
- Automotive – While manufacturers in the automotive supply chain use many cutting methods, lasers and plasmas generate significant thermal damage. Waterjet cutting avoids these problems when fabricating interior and exterior car parts, including power train components, gaskets and seals, and interior liners. Waterjet cutting also creates smooth edges, reducing or eliminating the need for secondary finishing.
- Manufacturing – Because it can handle such a wide range of materials, the manufacturing applications of waterjet cutting are endless. It’s currently used in factories around the world for volumes ranging from prototyping through mass production.
- Food – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved pure waterjet cutting in the processing of many types of foods, including candies, pastries, meats, fish, and produce. Because there are no blades involved, waterjets can eliminate cross-contamination from cutting processes.
- Construction – In the architectural industry, waterjet cutting is often used for creating detailed architectural components. Applications include signage, facades, stone inlays, and frame components.
Waterjet Cutting Capabilities
Waterjet cutting uses a high-velocity stream of water, usually combined with an abrasive such as garnet, to cut a workpiece. The process can be compared to natural water erosion, but at a speed that is increased by many orders of magnitude. Waterjet cutting is involved in fabricating an expansive range of goods, including:
- Industrial machine parts
- Architectural components (signage, framework components, masonry)
- Automotive components (gaskets, interior liners, exterior trim pieces).
One of the main benefits of waterjet cutting is its ability to handle virtually any type of material. For example, food processing businesses often use pure waterjet to slice edible goods, such as granola bars and frozen pizzas. On the opposite end of the spectrum, waterjet cutting cuts extremely strong materials like Kevlar, tungsten and titanium.
Waterjet Cutting Benefits
Cuts Virtually Any Type of Material
Accurate &
Precise
No Heat-Affected Zones
Reduced
Waste
Minimal
Fixturing
Additional benefits of waterjet cutting include:
- Accuracy/precision. Waterjet cutting offers precision cuts. At Aquajet, our waterjet equipment cuts within tolerances of +/- 0.005″. Our 5-axis cutting heads can accomplish very intricate, detailed cuts, including pierced holes, sharp corners, bevels, and complex three-dimensional shapes.
- Cold cutting. Unlike plasmas or lasers, waterjet cutting has no heat-affected zone that may warp or damage certain materials, so the structure and integrity of materials surrounding the cuts aren’t affected during the fabrication process.
- Reduced waste. The kerf of a waterjet cut is usually between 0.3 mm and 1 mm, minimizing the amount of scrap material generated during the process.
- Minimal fixturing. Thanks to the low transferred forces of the high-velocity jet of water, clamps and other fixtures are minimized. This facilitates the cutting of fragile or flexible materials.
Waterjet Cutting From Aquajet
At Aquajet, we provide custom waterjet cutting, fabrication, and design services for an expansive range of industrial applications. Our team has been leading the way in waterjet cutting for 15 years, and we have supported manufacturers and companies in a wide range of fields. Contact us to see how waterjet cutting can improve your manufacturing processes.