SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER 1697

Miniaturization of injection abrasive

water jet machining process
H Orbanic1, B Jurisevic1,2 , D Kramar1, M Grah2, and M Junkar1
1
Laboratory for Alternative Technologies, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2
Litostroj E.I., Production of Power Generation and Industrial Equipment, Ljubljana, Slovenia

The manuscript was received on 28 October 2005 and was accepted after revision for publication on 20 February 2006.

DOI: 10.1243/09544062JMES217

Abstract: This contribution presents the possibilities of applying abrasive water jet (AWJ)
technology for multi-material micromanufacture. The working principles of injection and
suspension AWJ systems are presented. Characteristics of this technology, such as the ability
to machine virtually any kind of material and the absence of a relevant heat-affected zone,
are given, especially those from which the production of microcomponents can benefit. A few
attempts to miniaturize the AWJ machining process are described in the state-of-the-art pre-
view. In order to develop and improve the AWJ as a microtool, a numerical simulation based
on the finite element analysis is introduced to evaluate the effect of the size abrasive particles
and the process efficiency of microsized AWJ. An ongoing project in which an improved mini
AWJ cutting head is being developed, is presented. Finally, the possible fields of application
are given, including a case study on the machining of miniaturized heat sinks.

Keywords: abrasive water jet machining, process miniaturization, finite element analysis

1 INTRODUCTION and the small forces involved during machining is a

Abrasive water jet (AWJ) is a non-conventional
machining process. There are two AWJ methods:
injection AWJ systems, in which the hard abrasive
particles are accelerated up to supersonic velocities
by a high-speed water jet (WJ) that is generated by
pressing water at high pressures through an orifice,
and suspension AWJs, in which a slurry of water and
abrasive is pressed though the nozzle at much lower
pressures. In both cases, the workpiece material is
removed mainly due to the erosion of abrasive par-
ticles. AWJ is distinguished from other machining
processes by its ability to machine practically any
kind of material, regardless of the material compo-
sition, structure, and mechanical and physical prop-
erties. Additionally, no relevant heat-affected zone is
produced in the proximity of the machining area on
the workpiece. From the point of micromachining,
the possibility to machine almost any kind of material

Corresponding author: Laboratory for Alternative Technologies,
University of Ljubljana, Askerceva 6, Ljubljana SI-1000, Slovenia.
email: bostjan.jursevic@fs.uni-lj.si
good motivation to adapt the presented technology
to multi-material micromanufacture.
Nowadays, AWJ technology is applied in many
fields, such as the automotive and aerospace indus-
try, construction engineering, mining, food proces-
sing, and even medicine. For typical AWJ cutting
applications, the water pressure is between 300 and
600 Mpa, the jet diameter roughly between 0.5 and
1.2 mm, and the abrasive particle size between 100
and 200 mm. Although the size of the jet is too large
for micromachining, e.g. machining of slots, it is
possible to produce thin-walled parts like honey-
combs, as shown in Fig. 1. This is possible because
the jet exerts very low side forces on the workpiece
and does not bend the wall. In order to make AWJ
technology more desirable and applicable in the
field of micromanufacturing, the first step isto mini-
mize the jet diameter by downsizing the nozzles and
other cutting-head components. This means that the
abrasive particle size has to be reduced as well.
According to the laws of hydrodynamics, when the
size is reduced, the velocity of the fluids has to be
increased in order to maintain similarity, which can
be achieved by using higher water pressures. Also,

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Fig. 1 Honeycomb structure cut with AWJ
the movement of the cutting head and the turning on
and off of the jet have to be more precisely con-
trolled. The control of the movement can be easily
achieved by using more precise gantry system. Jet
on/off control, however, is more complicated as it
depends on the AWJ generation system. The injec-
tion system develops problem due to the delay in
turning on the WJ and later the abrasive supply,
and the same when turning them off. That is why
some suggest using suspension AWJ, where this con-
trol is almost instantaneous [1]. This type of system
can also achieve smaller diameters of jets (down to
50 mm), but there is a greater wear of parts, which
usually have to be made of diamond.
The goal of this paper is to present current work
on utilizing AWJ for micromachining. The state-
of-the-art AWJ micromachining processes will be
presented in section 2. In the next section, some
theoretical ground work for describing the AWJ
machining and how this data can be used for
improving the ‘micromachinability’ of AWJ will be
presented. Because the injection system is widely
used and is easier to implement than the suspension
system, the work on the miniaturized injection cut-
ting head for producing smaller diameter jets will
be given. In the end, some case studies of using
AWJ for producing miniaturized parts and possible
areas of application are described.
2 STATE-OF-THE-ART PREVIEW
The injection AWJ system is not widely used in
micromachining, as the diameter of the jet pro-
duced by current cutting heads does not allow the
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Fig. 2 OMAX mini-abrasive jet cutting head [2]
generating of jets smaller than 400 mm [1]. OMAX
Corporation is the only manufacturer of AWJ
machines, which commercially offers mini-AWJ
nozzle, shown in Fig. 2, which is able to produce
cuts with widths between 0.5 and 0.6 mm [2].
In contrast, because of the small side forces
accompanying the cutting process, it is possible
to cut sections with thicknesses around 200 mm or
less. This will be explained in detail in section 4:
in the manufacture heat sinks, afin thickness of
150 mm was achieved.
Drilling holes is also an area where AWJ is a pro-
spective machining technology to produce holes of
diameter under 1 mm. Drilling with AWJ depends
on the jet diameter, the time of drilling, and type of
material used. Usually, the commercially available
injection cutting head can produce 0.9 mm wide
holes in a 6 mm thick workpiece before the backflow
can significantly increase the diameter of the hole
[22]. By optimizing the machining parameters and
with 0.38 and 0.51 mm diameter focusing tubes,
Hashish [3] obtained holes with diameters between
0.5 and 0.6 mm and a depth of 12.5 mm, which
gives an aspect ratio of around 20 [3].
More suitable for micromachining is the appli-
cation of the abrasive suspension jet (ASJ) in which,
in contrast to the injection AWJ, a suspension of
water and abrasive is premixed and passed through
a diamond nozzle. This method was also found to
be five times more effective than injection AWJ [4].
Miller reports of using ASJ operating at 70 MPa and
with nozzle diameters between 40 and 60 mm [1].
The ASJ machine is presented in Figs 3 and 4. The
machine has a special on/off valve with diamond
seats, which is installed upstream of the cutting
nozzle to allow multiple features to be cut per
second. The diamond seats prevent the abrasion of
the seats as the suspension passes through [1].
Figure 4 shows a flow circuit for a micromachining
ASJ. Pressurized water from a pumping unit is fed
to a flow controller, which controls the flow of
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Fig. 3 Picture of ASJ micromachining system [1]
water and abrasive suspension towards the cutting
nozzle. The machine utilizes a plunger pump, which
provides for a 50 mm nozzle 70 MPa of water pressure
and a flow rate of 2.5 l/h.
The abrasive that is mostly used in ASJ is garnet,
but aluminium oxide (Al2O3) can also be used. The
size of abrasive grains has to be accordingly much
smaller than the cutting nozzle diameter. The noz-
zles themselves are made from industrial diamond
or high wear resistant silicon carbide [1].
Miller performed cutting and drilling tests with the
ASJ machine, in which he used nozzle diameters
between 40 and 60 mm and water pressure of
70 MPa. He used different types and sizes of abra-
sives. For successful cutting tests, he used a garnet
abrasive of mean grain diameter 8 mm and Al2O3 of
300 nm mean diameter grains. In Fig. 5(a), a butterfly
motif is presented that illustrates the reproducing of
thin features with 8 mm abrasive grains. The thinnest
section of the butterfly wing is around of 200 mm.
For cutting with 300 nm mean diameter Al2O3,
Miller used a 40 mm nozzle. Figure 6 shows a 1 cm
long dragon cut out of 50 mm thick stainless steel
by using 300 nm abrasive. The cutting with sub-
micron abrasives gives good results, but they are
quite problematic because of agglomeration, which
can cause a decrease in jet effectiveness or can
cause the nozzle to jam.
Fig. 4 Schematic of the flow circuit for the ASJ [1]
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Fig. 5 Example of cutting thin sections, where the
smallest division is 0.1 mm [1]
Drilling or piercing tests were also performed on
50 mm thick stainless steel by using 58 mm diameter
nozzle and 8 mm garnet abrasive [1]. Figure 7 shows
part of a 33  33 array of holes with mean diameter
of 85 mm, drilled on a 250 mm pitch. The drilling
rate was 2.5 holes/s, which was limited by the valve
actuator response. When piercing with AWJ, the jet
is stationary and the piercing velocity is, depending
on the thickness of material, not very high. By
moving or oscillating the jet, the process can be
speeded up; the process is then called slotting.
3 DEFINITION OF THE REQUIRED MICRO
AWJ ATTRIBUTES USING FINITE
ELEMENT ANALYSIS
In order to predict the performance of micro-AWJ
machining, a finite element analysis (FEA) method
used to simulate single abrasive particle impacts
was adopted [5]. For the simulation of the AWJ
machining process, several issues have to be taken
into account. The highspeed of the abrasive particles
(vA) up to few 100 m/s, small dimension of the
particle (dA) in the range of some 100 mm and the
Fig. 6 Dragon cut with 300 nm abrasive out of 50 mm
thick stainless steel [1]
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Fig. 7 85 mm diameter holes drilled in a 50 mm thick
stainless steel [1]
fact that the impact takes place in a very short time
(in the range of few ms) represents important
issues in terms of time interval, which inevitably
lead to a numerical stability problem. The selected
set of units has to fulfil the condition in order that
no numerical instability begins.
Because of contact problems between the abrasive
particle and the workpiece material, and because of
the small duration of the impact, an implicit numeri-
cal code could not be applied. Therefore, ANSYS/
LS-DYNA was chosen, as it is an explicit numerical
program, designed to solve different types of impacts.
Compared to other attempts to simulate the AWJ
process with the FEA, some improvements were
implemented in the presented method. The material
model for the workpiece material was based on
the true stress – true strain curve, as it was an
elasto-plastic material, and it took into account the
hardening of the material due to plastic defor-
mations. Additionally, dynamic properties, such as
velocity and gravity were considered. The abrasive
particles are taken as rigid spherical objects with a
predefined mass and initial velocity that was the
same as the velocity of abrasive particles after the
acceleration process.
During the FEA simulation in ANSYS/LS-DYNA, it
was verified, after each time interval, if the contact
between the abrasive particle and the workpiece
surface had taken place. The selected type of the con-
tact had to fulfil two conditions. In the first place, the
contact has to be a surface-to-surface type. Next, the
contact type had to allow a surface to experience
material failure during the contact. Both demands
were fulfilled in the case, when an Eroding surface-
to-surface type of contact was chosen [5]. The local
fracture of workpiece material was thus correctly
modelled.
The applied FEA method has been recently
experimentally validated for stainless steel 1.4301
(AISI 304) as a workpiece material [5]. All the samples
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were ground prior to the experiment and the average
surface roughness Ra ¼ 0.83 mm was achieved. The
craters’ shapes after impact at different impact
angles and water pressures were observed and
compared with those simulated at different impact
angles and abrasive particles velocities (Fig. 8).
As described before, the impacts were numerically
simulated at different impact angles of abrasive
particles and its velocities. In the experimental
validation, the samples were exposed to the jet at
different impact angles using a specially developed
workpiece holder, which allowed us to expose the
workpiece surface at impact angles between 08 and
908. In contrast, it is extremely difficult to define
the actual velocity of abrasive particles. The only
practical way to do this is to find a relation between
the water pressure ( pW) and the abrasive particle
velocity. For injection AWJ systems, it is known
that the abrasive particle velocity depends on the
velocity of the WJ, which accelerates the abrasive
particles in the cutting head. During the experi-
mental validation, a shallow trace was engraved
using the high traverse rate (vT) of the cutting head
in order to observe the shape of single, isolated
craters on the sample surface, as shown in Fig. 8.
All the experiments were performed on the
OMAX type 2652A/20HP cutting system, with a
Böhler cutting head. The high-pressure water
was supplied from a hydraulic intensifier (Böhler
Ecotron 403).
From Fig. 9, it can be observed that the simulated
craters are more spherical than the measured one.
This can be explained by the fact that in the FEA
simulations, the abrasive particles are modelled
as perfect spherical bodies, while the measured
sphericity of the abrasive material used for the
experimental validation is about 0.6884. This differ-
ence between the modelled and actual abrasive
particles sphericity causes a drift between the
simulation and the experiment.
In Fig. 10, the results of the FEA simulation show
the influence of the abrasive particle diameter on
the removed workpiece material. It can be observed
that smaller abrasive particles remove less work-
piece material. The initial velocity for all abrasive
particles was set at 200 m/s.
The FEA simulation results are predictable: if
abrasive particles of different sizes impact with the
same velocity on the workpiece material, the
specific amount of material removed is proportional
to the size of the particles. This can be attributed to
the fact that when the size of the particles is
decreased, the impact surface decreases slower
than the kinetic energy of abrasive particles,
and, therefore, in case of smaller abrasives, the
energy concentration at the interface between the
abrasive particle and the workpiece surface is
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Fig. 8 Proposed approach of FEA simulation and experimental validation [5]

smaller. It can be concluded that in the case of
micro-AWJ machining, where finer abrasive is
used, the velocity has to be increased, otherwise it
could be that no material removal would take
place. Consequently, because the abrasive particle
velocity is proportional to the water pressure,
higher water pressure will be required in micro-
AWJ machining.
4 DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN OF MAWJ
CUTTING HEAD COMPONENTS
On the basis of equipment currently available on
the market, it was decided to develop a miniaturized
cutting head based on the abrasive injection prin-
ciple with a centrally located WJ. The requirements
for this cutting head are high cutting efficiency,

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1702 H Orbanic, B Jurisevic, D Kramar, M Grah, and M Junkar
Fig. 9 Numerical and experimental results in the case
of stainless steel 1.4301 (AISI 304) [5]
Fig. 10 FEA results for different abrasive particle
diameter
Fig. 11 Modular cutting head for MAWJ with a 0.3 mm diameter focusing tube. (a) Schematics
and (b) bottom view of the cutting head
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high quality of the cut, and narrow kerf widths and it
should be easy to change and adapt on any commer-
cially available AWJ cutting machine.
After evaluation of industrial cutting heads (jet
diameter dj 5 0.8 mm) and its components geo-
metry, it is not clear that the parameters are the
most important for the design of the cutting head.
Because no useful rule for miniaturization was
derived, the influences of several design parameters
on the cutting efficiency of MAWJ were evaluated in
practice. For this purpose, a modular cutting head
shown in Figs 11(a) and (b), was constructed. Such
construction allows exchanging of several orifice
inserts and mixing chambers with different
geometries. The self alignment cutting-head body
was made out of the conventional mixing chamber
by using electrical discharge machining (EDM). To
provide good sucking properties, a smaller abrasive
inlet was eroded with the inner diameter of 1.6 mm.
At water pressure of 350 MPa, the water flow rate
through a smaller orifice, whose diameter is approxi-
mately half of the conventional one, is less than 0.5 l/
min. This is about a quarter of the normal volume at
the same water pressure of 350 MPa. This means
that only a quarter of the usual abrasive mass flow
rate is applied. Also, the abrasive feeding system that
allows precise delivery of abrasive in quantities
between 10 and 100 g/min was developed. Another
feeding system for even finer abrasive dosage is
currently under construction, as such systems are cur-
rently not available on the market.
As the 0.3 mm focusing tube is used, finer abrasive
has to be utilized. The abrasive mesh 200, in which
grains have a mean diameter of 75 mm, was used
for the first tests. The tests with the new cutting-
head configuration for cutting of the 6 mm thick
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Fig. 12 Cutting of aluminium AL6061-T6 with MAWJ.
(a) Top view and (b) bottom view
aluminium AL-6061 showed promising results.
Figure 12 shows the top and bottom views of cuts
made by MAWJ. Because of the characteristics of
cutting with AWJ, such as the taper of cut and the
increased surface roughness with the depth of the
cut, the bottom of the cut (Fig. 12(b)) is narrower
and more wavy. Also, because aluminium is a ductile
material, the existence of burr at the bottom of cut
can be seen. The average surface roughness achieved
with abrasive mesh 200 was Ra ¼ 3 mm. In spite of
these promising results, the improvement and
development of MAWJ continues, as the stability of
performance has to be improved.
5 APPLICATIONS OF AWJ IN
MICROMACHINING
Apart from drilling holes in hard-to-machine
materials, one of the main possible areas of using
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Fig. 13 (a) The first thinning of the test workpiece and
(b) the second thinning
AWJ for micromachining is in producing thin
structures. In this section, two case studies will be
presented, where a commercial grade cutting head
was used for producing test shapes of thin EDM
electrodes or micropunches and for producing
miniaturized heat sinks.
For producing thin EDM electrodes, a cutting
head with an 0.8 mm diameter focusing tube and
an abrasive garnet with mean diameter of 100 mm
was used. The workpiece material was mild steel,
while the test workpiece had a square profile with
an edge length of 7.3 mm. The workpiece was
sequentially rotated by 908 and thinned in-between
with AWJ. This was done in two steps, as shown in
Fig. 13(a) for the first step and in Fig. 13(b) for the
second step.
The cut in the first step was 3.3 mm from the
centre line, while the cut in the second step were
0.5 mm from the centre line. Cutting velocities vt
and water pressure p was varied (vt ¼ 0.5, 1, 2, 4,
8 mm/s; p ¼ 180, 280 MPa) in order to obtain the
thinnest shape. The best results were achieved at
the lowest velocity of 0.5 mm/s and pressure of
280 MPa. The resulting part, whose width is 350 mm,
is shown in Fig. 14.
In the second case study, the manufacture of
heat sinks of aluminium by AWJ was studied. Two
designs were tested. The first one was a plate fin
design and the second one was a square pin design.
An engraving regime was used on the AWJ machine,
in which the cutting head moves so fast that the jet
does not have the time to cut through the workpiece.
In this way, the distance between fins or pins is fixed
by the diameter of the jet. The height of fins can be
controlled by the cutting velocity, as lower velocity
means higher fins.
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Fig. 16 The plate fin heat sinks produced by AWJ

Fig. 17 Tool path for cutting square pin heat sinks

When producing plate fins, the cutting velocity was

fixed at 5.5 mm/s, which gave approximately 15 mm
high fins. The focusing nozzle was 0.6 mm diameter
and water pressure 300 MPa. The tool path for cut-
ting plate fins is shown in Fig. 15. Four different
heat sinks were produced, and distance between
two passing tool paths was changed from 0.9 mm

Fig. 14 (a) The thinned test part for mini EDM

electrode. (b) The comparison of the thinned
part with a 1 mm measuring gauge

Fig. 15 Tool path for cutting plate fin heat sinks Fig. 18 The square pin heat sink produced by AWJ

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 Miniaturization of injection AWJ process
to 1.5 mm. The workpiece was 10 mm wide and
50 mm high. The heat sink was manufactured on
area of 10  10 mm. The results of the experiment
are shown in Fig. 16. The achieved thicknesses at
the top of the heat sinks were from 700 mm for the
thickest fins to 150 mm for the thinnest fins.
In the case of square pin design, a smaller focusing
nozzle was used and the velocity was increased
to 10 mm/s. The focusing nozzle was 0.5 mm in
diameter and the water pressure was 400 MPa. The
workpiece was of the same material as that of the
plate fin design, but the machining was performed
on the wider side of the workpiece. The distance
between two parallel passing tool paths was
1.1 mm, which gave in the end a 450 mm wide
square pin. The tool path for cutting the pins is
shown in Fig. 17 and the resulting heat sink is
presented in Fig. 18.
The heat sinks took little time to produce, as
the process is quite fast. By downsizing the nozzle
diameter and parameter optimization, smaller
dimensions of fins, around 100 mm, could be
achieved.
Although the previous pictures of the heat
sinks produced do not show them as finished
products, the AWJ can be used to cut the heat sink
out of the main workpiece body, but in this case
better manipulation of the workpiece would be
required.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The AWJ machining technology is a promising
technique in the area of micromachining because
the current trend in this field is to downsize the jet
diameter and to improve the accuracy of the process.
By exploiting the advantages, such as multi-material
machining, no thermal effects, and small forces
involved, some problematic areas of micromachin-
ing could be solved. There already exist possibilities
of machines and machine parts specialized in
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micromachining and some of possible parts were
presented in this paper. The major problem that
was addressed for this technique is the cleanness of
the process and manipulation of small parts. The
presented FEA simulation of the erosion process
that takes place during AWJ machining, confirmed
that in order to miniaturize the AWJ process, it is
necessary to reduce the abrasive size in the first
place and consequentially to increase the water
pressure. The new MAWJ cutting head follows these
conclusions and thus gave promising results for
future work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is supported by the ‘Multi-Material Micro
Manufacture: Technology and Applications (4M)’
Network of Excellence, Contract Number NMP2-
CT-2004-500274 and by the ‘Virtual Research Lab
for a Knowledge Community in Production
(VRL-KCiP)’ Network of Excellence, Contract
Number NMP2-CT-2004-507487, both within the
EU 6th Framework Program.
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4 Kovacevic, R., Hashish, M., Mohan, R., Kim, T. J.,
Ramulu, R., and Geskin, E. S. State of the art of research
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ASME J. Manuf. Sci. Eng., 1997, 119, 776 – 785.
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