Company insight
Applications for micro waterjet technology
Micro abrasive waterjet machining has become more widely used in the manufacturing of medical components. This method’s ability to process virtually all materials with a non-thermal system, that both preserves the material properties and produces fine surface finish with little or no need for finishing processes, offers qualitative and economic opportunities for medical device manufacturing. It is for these reasons that Finepart offer machines that utilise the technology.
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raditional abrasive waterjets (AWJ) have proved themselves to be very versatile tools with a widespread field of applications. Micro abrasive waterjets (MAW) are a more recent – and not yet widely known – development that have brought waterjet technology into the fine mechanic’s field. Both methods are based around the same process, but MAW is on a significantly smaller scale. A fine high-speed waterjet, generated from ca 4000 bar (58ksi) accelerates hard particles (abrasives – typically from garnet or alumina) which are focused into a stream which, upon interaction with the target material, cause very localised material removal through particle erosion. To obtain precision parts, the fine cutting jet must be installed in a machine tool capable of obtaining a very precise path motion. A state-of-the-art micro
abrasive waterjet system has jets that offer a tool radius down to 0.1mm (jet diameter 0.2mm) and can produce parts to a tolerance down to +/-0.01mm (10µm). Cut surfaces have no change in physical properties and are typically smooth and burr-free, with an Ra value down to ca 0.8µm depending on material. Applications where this process may offer opportunities and solutions are diverse as the process can take on a vast variety of material, from soft biological tissue, rubber and plastic polymers, advanced metal alloys, fibre-reinforced materials, powder materials and ceramics. Also combined materials, such as sandwiched or compound materials, can be cut. The erosion process provides the same jet ability to cut all these materials without changing its settings, adopting the cutting speed becomes the main
Vascular clip cut from NiTi-sheet demonstrating current capabilities of Finecut micro abrasive waterjet technology. 100 micron sections and +/- 10 micron tolerances.
factor to obtain the part surface quality and tolerance requirements. This fact provides an advantage in a relatively simple learning curve for new users.
The Finecut 200µ micro abrasive waterjet. 70
NiTi component production could be a major market Swedish machine tool manufacturer Finepart Sweden AB is a pioneering company in this market, dedicated to the development and marketing of very precise micro abrasive waterjets. Their Finecut machines have been offered worldwide since 2009 and are used in a wide range of applications, typically cutting exotic materials. A notable trend lately is Finecut-machines being employed specifically for NiTi applications, typically cutting from 0.3 to 5mm sheets. These applications account for more than 50% of the machines sold in 2021 and 2022. Most of these are installed in medical and dental applications, but the energy sector has applications as well. NiTi or Nitinol is an advanced alloy which offers interesting capabilities. Nitinol exhibits excellent super elastic
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
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