SBIR Phase I: Hydraulic System Design for a Low-cost Abrasive Waterjet Cutter

SBIR第一阶段项目旨在通过全面重新设计机器的核心部件，将磨料水射流切割的工业先进制造方法带给个人消费者，以满足消费者的预算需求。 该项目与当前将激光切割和3D打印等先进制造技术缩小到不断增长的桌面制造市场的趋势相平行。 不幸的是，目前可用于消费者市场的桌面数字制造工具仅限于生产软材料如塑料和木材的产品。 磨料水射流切割的最大优点是其在广泛的材料，包括塑料，金属，石材，陶瓷，玻璃和复合材料的切割能力。 随着这项技术最终被更广泛的受众所使用，从中学机器人专家到创意企业家，到创客空间，到工匠，再到小企业，每个人都将能够在目前可用的板材上进行数字化物理设计。目前的商业水射流设计在高压区域运行，这使得部件对于消费者市场来说过于昂贵。 为了使该技术适用于大众，它必须适应较低的压力空间，以利用整个机器的必要组件成本节约。 首先，通过设计和执行测试矩阵来创建低压磨料水射流切割的新性能模型，该测试矩阵将确定切割性能如何受各种水射流参数（水压、水流速、磨料流速等）的影响。 有了这样的理解，系统的核心，液压泵，将适应和定制的泵结构，目前不用于水射流切割。最后，这一努力结束了地面重新设计的水刀？的切割头（该组件的水和磨料的高速混合物，利用低成本的材料，制造工艺和独特的几何优化低压切割）。

This SBIR Phase I project aims to bring the industrial advanced manufacturing method of abrasive waterjet cutting to individual consumers by fully redesigning the core components of the machine to meet the budgetary needs of a consumer. This project parallels the current movement of scaling down advance manufacturing techniques such as laser cutting and 3D printing to the growing desktop fabrication market. Unfortunately, the desktop digital fabrication tools currently available to consumer market are restricted to producing goods in only soft materials like plastics, and wood. The biggest advantage of abrasive waterjet cutting is its cutting ability in a wide range of materials including plastics, metals, stone, ceramics, glass, and composites. With this technology finally accessible to a wider audience, everyone from the middle school robotocist, to a creative entrepreneur, to the makerspaces, to artisans, to small businesses will be able to digitally create physical designs in the full gambit of sheet materials that are currently available.Current commercial waterjet designs operate in a high pressure region that makes components prohibitively expensive for the consumer market. To make the technology viable for the masses it must be adapted to a lower pressure space to leverage the necessary component cost savings across the machine. This starts by creating a new performance model for low-pressure abrasive waterjet cutting through the design and execution of a test matrix that will determine how cutting performance is affected by various waterjet parameters (water pressure, water flow rate, abrasive flow rate, etc.). With this understanding, the heart of the system, the hydraulic pump, will be adapted and customized from a pump construction that is not currently used for waterjet cutting. Lastly, this effort concludes with a ground-up redesign of the waterjet?s Cutting Head (the assembly that ejects the high velocity mixture of water and abrasive) utilizing low-cost materials, manufacturing processes and a unique geometry optimized for low-pressure cutting.