ORIGINAL ARTICLE Vibration emission as a potential source of information for abrasive waterjet quality process control Vincent Peržel & Pavol Hreha & Sergej Hloch & Hakan Tozan & Jan Valíček Received: 21 February 2011 /Accepted: 24 October 2011 /Published online: 11 November 2011 # Springer-Verlag London Limited 2011 Abstract The paper deals with basic research of vibration generated at abrasive waterjet cutting of materials and their analysis of frequency spectrum in the plane cut. As an experimental material, stainless steel AISI 309 has been used. Experimentally controlled factor involved in the experiment was abrasive mass flow rate with values m a = 250 and 400 g min -1 at a constant traverse speed v = 100 mm min -1 . The vibrations were recorded during experimental cutting by sensors PCB IMI type 607A11 placed on experimental material along the cut at a distance of 50 mm from the cutting plane. Data collection was carried by NI PXI measurement system and frequency analyzer Microlog GX-S. Signal was evaluated by virtual instrument created in the object-programming environment LabView 8.5. Various sizes of amplitudes were observed depending on the distance of abrasive waterjet cutting process from the beginning of the cut. Two peaks of frequency bands have been also found: the first between 500 and 600 Hz and the other at approximately 12.5 kHz. Using this method is possible to ensure the determination of technology efficiency of the material removal process. Keywords Abrasive waterjet . Abrasive mass flow rate . Traverse speed . Vibration . Frequency spectrum 1 Introduction Processes of machining of both metal and non-metallic materials require a lot of information on the quality of the processes running in certain specific situations. Such information is justified not only in the conventional, but also in unconventional technologies. Hydro-abrasive water- jet (AWJ) cutting is coming forward when cutting of metal materials occurs. Given the specific conditions of AWJ, it is impossible to monitor the process directly, so instead, there is a focus on indirect monitoring by measuring and evaluating the accompanying physical phenomenon that characterize the cutting processes accurately enough. It includes the collection, evaluation, and elaboration of the vibration emission. Data found in the vibration emission spectra can identify an ongoing process, their impact on the cut material, and also AWJ state at the time of exposure to the material. Such information can be assigned to any position at the time of the cut and on the surface of the cut. The target solution lies in influencing of the input factors in technological process for the purpose of achieving optimal quality parameters of the cut surfaces, especially the roughness parameters [1–6]. In AWJ cutting of materials, especially metal, it is one of the important tasks to maintain the required quality level of V. Peržel : P. Hreha : S. Hloch (*) Department of Manufacturing Management, Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies, TUKE with a seat in Prešov, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia e-mail: sergej.hloch@tuke.sk V. Peržel e-mail: vincent.perzel@tuke.sk P. Hreha e-mail: pavol.hreha@tuke.sk H. Tozan Faculty of Engineering Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: htozan@marmara.edu.tr J. Valíček Faculty of Mining and Geology, VŠB—Technical University of Ostrava, 708 33 Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Republic e-mail: jan.valicek@vsb.cz Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2012) 61:285–294 DOI 10.1007/s00170-011-3715-6