Study on cutting surface quality of potassium-tungsten using premixed abrasive-water jet

Potassium-tungsten (KW) is expected to become an important material for manufacturing fusion device divertors. KW is a high-hard brittle material, and existing cutting methods have micro-cracks on the cutting surface, which affects the service life of the divertor. Premixed abrasive-water jet, as a special cold cutting process, is a potential method for achieving KW cutting. In this study, a full-factor premixed abrasive-water jet cutting experiment L9 (32) of KW was conducted, obtaining typical cutting surface macro-morphology. Then, the micro-morphology was obtained through a scanning electron microscope, and typical macroscopic and microscopic morphologies were analyzed to infer the cause of formation. Moreover, LS-DYNA numerical simulation of abrasive-water jet cutting of KW is carried out by the smoothed particle hydrodynamics-coupled finite element method, analyzing and verifying the reasons for the formation of typical cutting surface morphology. Finally, the cutting surface features were quantitatively characterized, and the influence of key parameters on them was studied. It was found that increasing the working pressure (P) and reducing the feed rate (v) can improve the cutting surface quality. The research results contribute to promoting the application of abrasive-water jet cutting technology in the manufacturing of fusion device divertors.