A Comparative Study on Abrasive Water Jet Machining Characteristics of Entry and Exit Layers of Glass and Basalt Woven Polymer Composites

Abstract

Abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) induced kerf and kerf tapper angle variation is much affected by the properties of the entry and exit layer of fiber reinforced polymer of composite. In this work, experimental investigation on the machining characteristics of vinyl ester composite fabricated by basalt and glass fiber as top and bottom layers separately interlayered with flax fiber. Hybridization of basalt/glass composite was made by the additional layers of flax woven. Two different stacked composites were fabricated by using hand layup process followed by static compression loading. The mechanical properties such as tensile and flexural strength were studied. It was found that top and bottom basalt layers interlayered flax fiber composite exhibited higher tensile and flexural properties. The tensile and flexural strength improvements were 7.15% and flexural 13.3% over the top and bottom glass layers interlayered flax fiber composite. The fabricated composites were machined by abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) using constant cutting parameters with pressure, nozzle speed, and standoff distance. Experimental results reveal that minimum kerf taper and higher cutting surface quality obtained with entry and exit layers of glass fiber composite.