HISTORY water jet cutting
The actual beginning of the use of high-pressure water jets took place in the 1930s in the USA and the Soviet Union. American and Russian engineers succeeded in compressing water to several hundred bar. The relaxed water jet at the nozzle pipe was used in tunnel and mining applications. During this period, the preferred field of application was the mining of coal and rock.
In the 1950s, Russian engineers succeeded in building pressure generators with more than 2000 bar. This enabled them to cut hard materials such as rock. These improved pressure generators were without competition, as it took the American technicians 10 years later to develop a high-pressure system with pressure intensifier principle.
The water jet was used as a cutting tool at the University of Michigan in the 1950s. Various methods of cutting wood were tested here.
Cutting tests on technical materials were carried out from 1961 onwards.
The first commercial high-pressure water jet cutting systems were not used until the early 1970s. The breakthrough of this technology came only in 1975/76 with the cutting of building material, plastic and corrugated cardboard in industrial production.
The next big step in this technology was in the early 80s. Here, abrasives (abrasive media) were added to the high-pressure water jet to increase the cutting performance. The simultaneously further developed high-pressure pumps with a pressure of up to 6000 bar brought this technology a great growth. This meant that it was now possible to cut hard/thick materials such as metals.