Mold Finishing Process Using Abrasive Water Jet (Relation between Incident Angle and Erosion Property of Abrasive Water Jet)

This study deals with polishing using abrasive water jet for corner parts of a mold. In recent years, great varieties of small volume production progresses and the demand for metal molds and dies is increasing. However, automation of polishing process is under developing, and expert workers manually perform polishing work which takes much time and requires skills. This study aims at rationalizing such difficult polishing work by application of abrasive water jet which uses free abrasive grains. In previous research, the surface roughness of 0.058μm(Ra) was achieved on polishing for plane surface of mold material. Since the nozzle was paralleled to finished surface and had collision with workpiece, it was difficult to apply abrasive water jet to polishing mold . In this report, round groove shaped workpieces, which are seen at corner parts of a mold, are dealt as one of difficult parts for manually polishing. The experiment on incident angle from workpiece is performed to cope with collision avoidance between mold and nozzle. From the experimental result, we discuss relation between incident angle and abrasive energy giving affect to erosion on polishing surface using abrasive water jet.