Cut safely and efficiently

WAS cutting technology

Water Abrasive Suspension (WAS) cutting process

With the Water Abrasive Suspension (WAS) cutting process, almost all materials can be cut with the aid of a cold high pressure water jet and sharp-edged abrasive. The cuts are executed in a contact-free manner, with no heat generation or deformation. This specialised technology is used both in air and under water. Depending on the area of application, it enables the remote-controlled cutting of materials of up to 1,000 mm thickness from up to 1,000 m away.

How does the Water Abrasive Suspension (WAS) cutting process work?

Fields of application

  • Dismantling and maintenance of offshore installations above and under water
  • Disarming of unexploded ordnance (EOD) and improvised explosive devices (IEDD)
  • Dismantling and maintenance of a wide variety of installations in sensitive, explosive or radioactive areas
  • Industrial manufacturing
  • Challenging cuts in extraordinary situations

Key Features

  • Cuts almost any material
  • Cutting in air and under water
  • Cold cutting process
  • Contactless cut
  • No sparking
  • Suitable for ATEX-zones and cutting explosives
  • High cutting performance even with very thick materials
  • High cutting quality, post processing not required
  • Remote operation from a large distance
  • Low particle emission
  • Low noise emission
  • Energy efficient
ANT AG | Base Fuse Under Water Cut
Base Fuse Under Water Cut
ANT AG | Asymetrische Multistring Casings
Asymetrische Multistring Casings
ANT AG | WAS System & WAIS System
WAS System & WAIS System

The WAS cutting process in brief

The water is supplied at a pressure of up to 2500 bar. By means of a T-piece, the water is divided into a main and a bypass flow. As soon as the bypass valve is opened, part of the water gets into the high-pressure vessel of the AMU. Here the water joins the abrasive previously filled into the AMU at ambient pressure. The resulting suspension is forced out of the container by the pressure of the water flowing in and joins the main flow in a mixing piece.

The Water Abrasive Suspension (WAS) is fed to the cutting nozzle via a high-pressure hose and pressed through it. The potential energy represented by the pressure and the flow is converted into a cutting jet with a velocity of several hundred meters per second.

The result is a two-phase cutting jet consisting of approximately 97.5 vol. percent water and 2.5 vol. percent abrasive. Since the abrasive particles in WAS systems are bound directly in the water, the suspension jet is much more stable, precise and powerful than the injection jet.

Components of a WAS cutting system

The core components of a Water Abrasive Suspension (WAS) cutting system are a high pressure pump, an abrasive mixing unit (AMU) and a nozzle.

Depending on the application, specialised remote-controlled cutting devices, monitoring and control systems as well as other accessories are deployed

Do you have any questions?

Our project team will be happy to help. You can reach us by phone Monday to Friday from 8am to 4.30pm

+49 (0)451 58 38 80-0
project@ant-ag.com

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