Water jet cutting is an environmentally friendly technology. The use of highly pressurized water usually combined with an abrasive such as garnet or aluminum oxide makes for a clean and safe method of cutting unlike laser cutting, it produces no gas by-products or dust.
Gas produced through laser cutting is toxic and must be contained and disposed of under stringent rules and guidelines to ensure workplace and environmental safety. This process incurs considerable cost and makes the use of water jet cutting much more appealing and economical, using water does not require any form of emulsions, cutting oils or coolants further reducing cost and wastage of natural resources.
Water Jet Use:
Companies offering water
jet cutting services maintain a safer, cleaner and environmentally friendly workplace with the use of a more economical technology.
There are many more advantageous reasons to using a water jet to cut materials over other cutting technologies. Cutting highly reflective metals cannot be done by laser and using a water jet makes perfect sense in this instance, in addition cold cutting technology has the benefit of not affecting the structural properties of the material and will not cause the material to harden or warp. Water jets can also be used for cutting stone, ceramics and metals of greater thickness and are great for the production of complex cutting shapes.
Some of the materials include: 
-
Aluminum
-
Armour Plate
-
Ceramics
-
Granite
-
Inconel (Inco)
-
Plastic coated metals
-
Stainless Steel
-
Titanium
-
Tool Steel
Water jets also create no thermal stress in the material being cut and will cut cleanly to close tolerances providing a good edge finish. The high precision of water jet cutting technology creates a clean end product with burr free cutting edges; eliminates the need of costly re-cutting and there is no need for constant tool sharpening unlike in other cutting methods.
It is also possible to cut combination materials however this is not a guaranteed process as the use of water jet cutting may potentially cause the material layers to separate causing delamination, resulting in loss of mechanical toughness and structural stability of the material.
The use of a very fine water jet will also limit the waste of material as it provides a narrow cutting gap which provides greater savings to the customer.