A study of high pressure water jets for cutting chicken breast meat

A replicated experiment was conducted to determine optimum settings for ori fice size, operating pressure, and nozzle traverse speed for cutting bonele ss chicken breast meat with high-pressure water jets. Three orifices of 0.0 76, 0.127 and 0.178 mm were tested with different water pressures in the 90 to 224 MPa range and nozzle traverse speeds in the 50 to 800 mm/s range. A 0.127-mm orifice working with water pressure in the range of 179 to 224 MP a and at 100 mm/s or slower cutting speed gave best results in this study t o produce sharp clean cuts. Water jets from a 0.178-mm orifice frequently c aused too much meat loss especially at higher wafer pressures and slower no zzle speeds. Variations in chicken filet thickness also had significant eff ect on chicken breast meat cutting quality and depth with both 0.076 and 0. 127-mm orifices.