A new cutting depth model with rapid calibration in abrasive water jet machining of titanium alloy

Titanium alloys are widely used in the aeronautical and engineering fields as they show an excellent trade-off between the mass and mechanical properties, but as hard materials, they are difficult to machine using cutting tools. The abrasive water jet affords a good solution to produce titanium parts, especially slim ones. To do so, there is a need to adopt a modelling approach for the depth milled. However, a general methodology that takes into account all the parameters leads to complex models based on a large number of experiments. The present article proposes a depth of cut model combined with a rapid calibration method. The case addressed is that of open rectangular pockets on a Ti-6AL-4V titanium alloy. The approach introduces the machine configuration notion considering that a given machine, pressure level and abrasive impose the abrasive flow rate needed in order to obtain an optimal material removal rate. For a chosen configuration, calibration of the model is performed from a series of elementary passes and just three pocket machining passes. The method is rapid and effective as the accuracy of the models obtained over a number of configurations was to within the order of 5%.