A MODELING STUDY OF JET CUTTING SURFACE ROUGHNESS

THIS RESEARCH PROJECT WILL EXPERIMENTALLY AND THEORETICALLY TREAT THE SURFACE ROUGHNESS PHENOMENON ASSOCIATED WITH WATERJET AND ABRASIVE-WATERJET CUTTING. SURFACES PRODUCED WITH THESE TECHNIQUES ARE 'STRIATED' DUE TO THE GLOBAL KINEMATIC NATURE OF THE "STREAM-LIKE" CUTTING TOOL. EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS WILL FOCUS ON THE DOCUMENTATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS PARAMETERS FOR A WIDE RANGE OF INFLUENCING PARAMETERS. A MODEL WILL BE DEVELOPED TO RELATETHE DEPENDENT PARAMETERS OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS TO THE MOST SIGNIFICANT INDEPENDENT PARAMETERS. THE MODELING EFFORTS WILL IDENTIFY SPECIAL EXPERIMENTS TO BE CONDUCTED. THE BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE MECHANISMS OF SURFACE "STRIATION"WILL SUGGEST TECHNIQUES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF SURFACE FINISH.