Cellular Automata Algorithm for Waterjet Cutting Simulation

An improved two dimensional cellular automata (CA) algorithm for simulating the process of waterjet cutting is presented. The algorithm has three key rules, first is the evolutionary rule of the jet cell, which is deduced by the jet velocity theory, and the second is the material cell erosion rule which is concluded by the energy erosion model, another is the input rule of the waterjet energy, which is expressed with a dynamic moving algorithm. The CA algorithm designed in the paper could simulate the cutting process entirely. The simulation results are verified with several instances, and lag distance of the jet in the simulations are compared with the experiments, which show that the two dimensional CA model is an effective method to simulate waterjet cutting.