Visualization of water jet cutting by means of ultrasonic waves

It has been recognized from many investigations on water jet cutting mechan ism that visualization of a cutting front is very effective to deepen under standing of the mechanism. However, an in-process visualization method, esp ecially those applicable to opaque materials such as metals has not been es tablished even now. This paper newly proposes a method of visualization of cutting front using ultrasonic waves. Several experiments have shown that i n-process visualisation of a shape of the cutting front, inclination and pr ofile waviness of cutting surface can be realized using the proposed method . Furthermore, this paper also proposes a water jet cutting process model b ased on detail analyses of visualization results.