Abrasive water jet cutting technology is widely applied in the materials processing today and attracts great attention from scholars, but many phenomena concerned are not well understood, especially in the internal jet flow of the cutting head at the condition of ultra-high pressure. The multiphase flow in the cutting head is numerically simulated to study the abrasive motion mechanism and wear inside the cutting head at the pressure beyond 300 MPa. Visible predictions of the particles trajectories and wear rate in the cutting head are presented. The influences of the abrasive physical properties, size of the jewel orifice and the operating pressure on the trajectories are discussed. Based on the simulation, a wear experiment is carried out under the corresponding pressures. The simulation and experimental results show that the flow in the mixing chamber is composed of the jet core zone and the disturbance zone, both affect the particles trajectories. The mixing efficiency drops with the increase of the abrasive granularity. The abrasive density determines the response of particles to the effects of different flow zones, the abrasive with medium density gives the best general performance. Increasing the operating pressure or using the jewel with a smaller orifice improves the coherency of p articles trajectories but increases the wear rate of the jewel holder at the same time. Walls of the jewel holder, the entrance of the mixing chamber and the convergence part of the mixing tube are subject to wear out. The computational and experimental results give a qualitative consistency which proves that this numerical method can provide a reliable and visible cognition of the flow characteristics of ultra-high pressure abrasive water jet. The investigation is benefit for improving the machining properties of water jet cutting systems and the optimization design of the cutting head.
The recent research about cavitation jet mainly focuses on the organ-pipe nozzle and triangular nozzle. The research content mainly includes the optimized design about the structure of nozzles, the observation and flow analysis about the cavitation jet in the water, and the theory of rock attacked by the cavitation jet, while the energy characteristic of the free jet is not studied yet. In China, the research about the central-body nozzle is almost empty. For the purpose of studying the energy characteristic and the structure of free water jet discharged from central-body nozzle, an experiment with phase Doppler particle anemometry（PDPA） technology is carried out to measure the free water jet flow, which is produced by a central-body nozzle under the jet pressure of 15 MPa. While five sections with different axial distances from the nozzle outlet are selected for data process and analysis, the axial and radial velocity and the droplets of the particle size are studied. Meanwhile, numerical calculation of corresponding flow field is conducted by using volume of fluid（VOF） multiphase model, and the jet flow feature is discussed. The experimental and calculating results show that the axial velocity of high speed jet flow dissipates slowly in the air, and the core area and diffused area are discovered. The diameter of droplet in the core area is small, and jet energy is concentrated, while in the diffusion area, water is mingled with ambient air and radial velocity is relatively large. Obvious low-pressure area exists behind the central body and potential cavitation may occur in that area. The proposed research reveals the energy characteristic of free jet discharged from central-body nozzle, provides the theoretical basis for preestimating erosion feature of the central-body nozzle and also the theoretical foundation for revealing the mechanism of erosion.
The flow characteristics of cavitation jets are essential issues among relevant studies. The physical properties of the jet are largely determined by the geometrical parameters of the nozzle. The structure and cavitation jets characteristics of the angular-nozzle and the self-resonating cavitation nozzle have been extensively studied, but little research is conducted in the central-body cavitation nozzle mainly because of its hard processing and the cavitation jet effect not satisfactory. In this paper, a novel central-body nozzle (a non-plunger central-body nozzle with square outlet) is studied to solve above problems. Submerged jets discharged from the novel central-body nozzle are simulated, employing the full cavitation model. The impact of nozzle configuration on jet properties is analyzed. The analysis results indicate that when central-body relative diameter keeps constant, there is an optimal contraction degree of nozzle’s outlet, which can induce intense cavitation in the jet. The central-body relative diameter also affects jet profiles. In the case of large central-body relative diameter, most of the bubbles settle in the jet core. On the contrary, a smaller relative diameter makes bubbles concentrate in the interface between the jet and its surrounding fluid. Moreover, the shorter outlet part allows the cavitation zone further extend in both the axial and racial directions. The research results further consummate the study on the central-body nozzles and the correlation between cavitation jet and the structure, and elementarily reveal the mechanism of cavitation jet produced in a non-plunger novel central-body nozzle and the effect of the structure parameters on the cavitation jet, moreover, provide the theoretical basis for the optimal design of the nozzle.
