Analysis on surface roughness in abrasive water jet machining of aluminium

Abrasive water jet machining is a non-conventional machining process which uses abrasives and water as the medium. Surface roughness plays a vital role in determining the quality of the machined components. In this study, the effect of abrasive flow rate on AA 6351 was experimentally calculated. The experiments were performed with five different abrasive flow rates of 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 g/min were employed. The other parameters such as feed rate, standoff distance, water pressure and mesh size were kept constant. Experimentally, the results of abrasive flow rate on surface roughness (Ra) have been examined. The study reveals that increase in flow rate of the abrasives minimises the surface roughness value.