Purpose of this study is to determine the effects of different operational parameters such as; traverse velocity, standoff distance and pump pressure on performance parameters namely depth of cut and width of cut on cutting operation with pure water jet by using Italian granite sample commercially named as Beta Pink. Width of cut which is not mentioned in the literature before has been used as the second performance parameter in this study. 36 cutting test have been performed at constant nozzle diameter value of 0.8 mm, varying the standoff distance (5, 10 and 20 mm) the traverse velocity (4, 8, 16, 32 m/min) and the pump pressure (30, 60, 90MPa).As a result of this study, it is observed that machine parameters have direct effects on cutting performance in water jet.
Water jet cutting systems have made considerable progress since their commercial introduction in 1972. The major initial advantage which they provided was through the ability to penetrate through many materials on either side of the cut. As water jetting has become more successful, many researches and studies have done before on water jet systems and its applications (Brook&Summers 1969, Hashish&Plesis 1979, Hashish & Plesis 1981, Summers 1987, Bortolussi et al. 1988, Chen at al. 2002, Külekci 2002, Bortolussi et al. 2003, Costa 2007, Gürsel 2008). As it is seen from the Table 1, it is not possible to change the rock properties named as unchangeable parameters for cutting operations with water jet. So, it is only possible to change machine parameters for increasing the cutting performance. Due to the fact that studies and researches done on water jet before, had not considered the depth of cut and the width of cut values together as performance parameters in cutting operation.
