Waterjet cutting involves projecting a high-speed stream of water — two to three times the speed of sound — to cut through various materials with precision, including food products. This high velocity is achieved by forcing water through a nozzle just a few tenths of a millimeter wide, under pressures ranging from 2000 to 4000 bar. For cutting food or soft materials, pure water is sufficient, while for harder materials, an abrasive is added. As a cold cutting process, waterjet cutting generates no heat, which prevents material distortion and ensures a clean, accurate cut.
Waterjet Cutting Machines for Soft Materials
For cutting soft materials such as foam, flexible PVC, rubber, leather, textiles, or paper, pure water is all that is needed. The ultra-fine, high-speed waterjet impacts the surface of the material directly, producing a clean and precise cut without burrs or deformation. This method is particularly suitable for materials that require exact cutting without altering their properties.
Abrasive Waterjet Cutting Machines
Abrasive waterjet cutting is ideal for tougher materials such as metals, rigid plastics, composites, tiles, or concrete, where pure water is no longer sufficient. In these cases, an abrasive waterjet technique is used. By adding abrasive particles to the water, the stream becomes a powerful carrier fluid that accelerates the particles to perform the cut. This process allows for clean cutting of thick, hard materials and is carried out using a cutting head equipped with a mixing chamber and a focusing tube to ensure jet precision.
Advantages of Waterjet Cutting
- Cuts through thick materials up to 150 mm
- Suitable for homogeneous, heterogeneous, or composite materials
- Cold cutting process: no heat generation, no impact on material structure, and no toxic gas emissions (when cutting organic materials)
- Well-suited for 2-, 3-, or 5-axis systems controlled by Computer Numerical Control (CNC) or robots, with no need for tooling
- Capability to operate multiple cutting heads simultaneously
Discover waterjet cutting for food products – ChefCut®
HYDROPROCESS and its team are your partners for all of your projects involving high-pressure machines up to 7000 bar. Contact us for more information !