Adaptive nozzle system for high-energy abrasive stream cutting

Details Adaptive nozzle system for high-energy abrasive stream cutting Adaptive nozzle system for high-energy abrasive stream cutting

2002-04-01

2004-06-22

Nguyen, George (Department: 3723)

Abrading

Precision device or process - or with condition responsive...

Condition responsive control for sandblasting

C451S036000, C451S038000, C451S040000, C451S102000, C451S090000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06752685

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The subject adaptive high-energy abrasive stream cutting system is generally directed to a system for performing high definition cutting or abrading of a workpiece. More specifically, the subject adaptive high-energy abrasive stream cutting system is one which delivers onto a workpiece a high energy abrasive cutting stream to form therein an instantaneous kerf of cut having a predetermined shape. It is a system which forms and optimally maintains the angular orientation of the instantaneous kerf of cut during the abrasive cutting stream's cutting of or about a predefined pattern defined on the workpiece.
Various types of systems are known in the art which utilize abrasive fluidic streams to cut or abrade predefined patterns in or through even very hard and tough materials, like dense stone and steel, which are normally quite difficult to cut, let alone to precisely contour. Unlike sandblasting and other such types of systems for effecting broad surface treatment, high definition cutting systems generate highly focused, extremely pressurized fluidic cutting streams in order, for example, to very closely trace intricate prescribed patterns upon a workpiece. Given enough cutting pressure, highly intricate patterns can effectively be ‘carved’ into even the hardest of workpiece materials using such systems.
Typically in those systems, a head assembly receives and pressurizes a stream of water or other suitable fluid material provided by a given source. The pressurized stream is then further pressurized by forced passage through a nozzling mechanism whereupon a suitably abrasive particulate material is drawn into the stream at a controlled concentration for commingled expulsion therewith onto a workpiece. The energy and resulting abrasiveness of the cutting stream thus expelled is sufficiently high to cut into—and if desired, through—the workpiece material. The abrasive cutting stream may thereafter be displaced along the workpiece to trace and cut one or more predefined patterns.
Common drawbacks to these systems and their numerous applications are many, however—not the least of which are the inefficient consumption of the energy harnessed in the cutting stream, and the inability to effectively accommodate cuts of varying intricacy along a given pattern. In such known systems for precise workpiece cutting applications, little if any attention has been placed upon the sectional contour of the generated high-energy abrasive cutting stream. Consequently, no significant effort has heretofore been made—at least not in cutting applications—to employ an abrasive stream shaped in sectional contour to anything other than a standard, substantially circular shape. Except where the pattern to be cut presents a circular concavity along the path of cut, then, presently known cutting systems invariably incur substantial waste in the generated stream's cutting energy.
Where the cutting stream incorporates an abrasive particulate material, such known cutting systems wastefully consume greater amounts of the abrasive particulate material than necessary. Since the abrasive particulate material tends to be well dispersed throughout the cutting stream when entrained therein, the particulate material unnecessarily occupies that portion of the cutting stream failing to contribute a meaningful cut. Over the duration of an extended cutting process, the waste could accumulate to considerable amounts.
The resulting inefficiency is illustrated in
FIGS. 10
a
and
11
a
, which show a circular stream section
1000
disposed in cutting position along variously configured peripheries
1100
,
1120
of a pattern to be cut. The tangency of contact between the stream
1000
and the straight periphery
1100
necessarily limits the actual cutting action along the periphery
1100
to just the stream's immediately proximate portion
1010
. Where the object is simply a precise cut along this straight periphery
1100
, then, it is only the immediately proximate portion
1010
of the stream
1000
which forms a cut of any real consequence. Unless the object includes cutting a particularly configured gap to immediately bound the pattern being cut, for instance, the cutting power of the stream's remaining distal portions
1020
is essentially wasted. The stream's wasted cutting power is all the more evident in
FIG. 11
a
where the tangency of contact between the stream
1000
and the cut pattern's periphery
1120
is accentuated by the convexity of this periphery
1120
.
FIG. 12
a
illustrates other difficulties often encountered in the use of systems heretofore known when even a nominally intricate cut pattern
1140
is prescribed. Where, as illustrated, the prescribed cut pattern
1140
includes such features as a recessed periphery
1140
a
, the same cutting stream configuration used elsewhere along the cut pattern may not suffice in cutting the recess
1150
delineated by periphery
1140
a
. While the cutting stream
1000
may adequately cut along the pattern's base periphery
1140
b
, it exceeds in diameter the width of the recess
1150
to be cut. It may be necessary in such instance, perhaps, to halt operation and make the required modifications to generate a finer cutting stream
1000
′ before the recessed periphery
1140
a
could be fully cut. This may require a certain degree of re-tooling in many cases.
Given such impediments, high definition cutting of precisely defined workpiece patterns remains a considerable challenge in the art. Even where ample resources to eventually effect a precise cut and finish about intricately detailed patterns, the indiscriminate use of an abrasive cutting stream having a fixed sectional configuration and the retention of that abrasive cutting stream at fixed angular orientation during operation, often render the process unduly inefficient and labor/time intensive—prohibitively so, in some cases.
2. Prior Art
High energy abrasive stream cutting systems are known in the art, as are assemblies which define and expel a non-circularly shaped abrasive stream. The best prior art references known include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,109,262; 3,576,222; 4,555,872; 4,587,772; 4,669,760; 4,708,214; 4,711,056; 4,776,412; 4,817,874; 4,819,388; 4,848,671; 4,854,091; 4,913,353; 4,936,059; 4,957,242; 5,018,317; 5,018,670; 5,052,624; 5,054,249; 5,092,085; 5,144,766; 5,170,946; 5,209,406; 5,320,289; 5,469,768; 5,494,124; 5,584,106; 5,782,673; 5,785,258; 5,851,139; 5,860,849; 5,878,966; 5,881,958; 5,921,476; 5,992,763; 6,065,683; and 6,077,5152.
Such prior art references, however, fail to provide any system in which a high energy abrasive stream for precise cutting of predefined workpiece patterns is sufficiently shaped and angularly displaced in adaptive manner during operation. Where the abrasive stream is modified in form to something other than a circular or other such fixed sectional contour, the abrasive stream in known systems is invariably modified either for conditioning/treating the workpiece surface or for removing wide areas of workpiece material, not for precision cutting. The stream is, therefore, modified in those systems primarily for dispersive effect. Hence, there remains a need for a system which removes the considerable inefficiency and imprecision inhering in high-energy abrasive stream cutting systems heretofore known.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a system for generating an abrasive cutting stream operable to cut about or along a predefined pattern on a workpiece in an energy efficient manner.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system for generating and adaptively maintaining at an optimal angular orientation a high energy abrasive cutting stream which is displaced in accordance with a predefined cutting pattern.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system whose cutting stream generates a kerf of cut having in sectional contour a preselected one of a plurality of predetermined shapes suitable t

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