LAUSR

Abstract Abrasive water jet cutting (AWJC) technology has a broad application prospect in flammable and explosive environment. However, the sparks during the rear-mixed AWJC process has been considered as a major hazard. In this paper, the characteristics and generation mechanism of the sparks produced by the rear-mixed abrasive water jet (AWJ) have been analyzed. The results show that the essence of the spark is the continuous combustion of material debris, and the air bubbles in rear-mixed AWJ provide the oxygen conditions for the combustion. By comparing the temperature characteristics of the sparks with the ignition condition of the combustible gas, it is found that the duration of high temperature of sparks is very short and it is difficult to ignite the combustible gas by heat transfer between sparks and combustible gas, which indicates that the sparks has high safety. In order to confirm the reliability of the above analysis, several safety experiments are carried out under the simulated flammable and explosive environment caused by gasoline leakage. No explosion is found during the cutting process, which further proved that the security of sparks in the rear-mixed AWJC process. The safety research on sparks has an important theoretical and engineering value to promote the application of AWJC technology in hazardous environment.