Intelligent process control for water-jet abrasive cutting
Intelligent process control for water-jet abrasive cuttingKeywords: Flow Europe, Software development
Flow Europe, Darmstadt, Germany, has developed the FlowMaster software especially for profile cutting on high-pressure water-jet and abrasive jet machines. It runs on a PC under MS Windows and combines independent CAD/CAM-software with programming and machine control. The basis is a computing model, which is derived from 25 years of experience with the abrasive cutting process, supported by a complete materials database. With an additional calculation tool, the actual processing expenditure can be precisely determined in advance.
FlowMaster monitors a multitude of process parameters and machine functions. For example, it adjusts the feed rate, taking account of material properties and the actual contour.
From this, an economically optimised and constant cutting quality results,regardless of the type of material, its thickness and geometry (see Plate 1). For example, further optimisations by means of software are:
Cutting processes can be started, stopped or run back immediately from any point of the contour.
Depending on the type of material and thickness, the choice of the economic type of drilling is made.
MS Windows makes programming during the current cutting operation possible.
The real time display gives information at all times about the position of the cutting jet.
Optional special applications or individual macro programming from the user of Flow.
Additional modules take on further functions; such as complete interlacing of the parts; execution of special operations, such as drilling of holes;conversion of scanned images into DXF-code. Flow offers a further advantage to all users: they get the entire system "machine and software" from one source from the pioneer of water-cutting technology.
Plate 1 From soft as butter to hard as granite stretches the spectrum of materials with which the FlowMaster software optimises profile cutting on high-pressure water-jet and abrasive jet machines
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