When considering what machine to use to cut specialty metals and alloys, it’s important to consider a variety of factors. Your decision must be guided by material type, thickness, ability to machine post cut, and how much tolerance your operation has for post-cut processing.
When it comes to materials like titanium, stainless steel, and other specialty alloys, this is even more true. Getting a quality cut while avoiding damage to the material is even more critical given the cost of the materials. You can’t afford to be throwing away materials because of heat damage.
An alloy is a substance made my melting two or more elements together with at least one of those elements being a metal. Specific alloys are used for their chemical and/or physical properties that make them useful for certain products and/or applications. Typical improvements alloys allow over single-element metals include:
Specialty metals and alloys are notoriously difficult to cut. This is because they are often very dense materials that require special care making them hard to machine as well. Enter water jet machines.
Two alloys that are particularly well suited for use with water jet machines are titanium and stainless steel. Let’s explore.
Stainless steel is a ferrous alloy that contains a minimum of 11% chromium that prevents the iron in the steel from rusting and also provides significantly better heat resistance. It’s low maintenance and looks great which makes it ideal for a variety of applications. While it is common to cut low gauge stainless steel with lasers and plasma, there are disadvantages to that. First, the extreme heat created with these methods can cause unwanted hardening of the material. Second, machining can be made much more difficult due to poor edge quality (requiring deburring).
Titanium can be easily alloyed with other elements to produce strong, lightweight metals for industries such as aerospace, military, automotive, agriculture, medical, and more. It has an incredible strength to weight ratio, a high melting point, and is resistant to almost all corrosion.
Specialty alloys and/or “Super Alloys” are developed for very specific applications. They are very high in strength, resistant to corrosion and more specifically, they maintain those properties under extreme temperatures. Some examples of these materials include:
These are high-value, application specific metals tailored for the products they’re used in.
For these types of metals, water jet machines are the ideal cutting tool as they maintain several advantages over their alternatives like lasers and plasmas:
Water jet machines are a fantastic fit for cutting specialty alloys. Compared to alternate cutting systems, water jet machines have many advantages. However, there are many different configurations available, and getting the right one for your application is crucial. Talk to us at Jet Edge today before making a purchasing decision. We'll have a one on one conversation about what material you’re cutting, and work with you to design a custom machine that fits your exact application.
Since 1984, Jet Edge has been designing and manufacturing Ultra-High-Pressure Water jet technology that doesn't back down. Our systems are used around the world in a broad range of industries from the world's leading airlines, to automotive, aerospace and industrial manufacturers, and machine job shops.
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