Abrasive water jet turning (AWJT) is an advanced machining technique surpassing the traditional turning by not inducing severe thermal or mechanical stresses in the machining zone. Nevertheless, controlling the performance of this process is very challenging as being dominated by several process parameters in addition to the complex physical nature of material removal. The present work aims to create a finite element (FE) model in order to examine the effect of traverse rate and jet impact angle on the erosion process in the radial mode of AWJT. The chosen workpiece material was AISI 4340 and the material model of Johnson-Cook (JC) was adopted for it to realize its behavior. The 32 full factorial design was employed to prepare the test plan under three levels of the two process factors. After performing the simulations, the crater geometry was observed for each factor combination in the test plan. The model results were consistent to some extent with the experimental studies and can be further used to predict the radial depth of cut (DOC) in AWJT. |
