Measurements, Analysis, and Interpretation of the Signals From a High-Pressure Waterjet Pump

The waterjet (WJ) technology, whose characterization involves phenomena belonging to different fields of physics, presents some particular aspects that make it essential in some manufacturing operations where it is important to cut special or hard-to-machine materials by means of a cold process. In this paper, the relationships between the electric input signals and the mechanical and fluid-dynamic signals have been analyzed with the aim to evaluate the possibility to design an online and nonintrusive monitoring and diagnostic system based only on electric signal processing. As the second main purpose of this paper, the same methodology, which can also be applied to the characterization and comparison of the WJ plants' components, has been tested on the characterization and the following comparison of water orifices (the orifice is one of the most important components for the WJ technology due to the energy transformation which takes place inside) to validate the proposed approach.