CFD Analysis of Pure Waterjet Nozzle for Fruit Peeling and Cutting Process

Abstract

Waterjet Technology has been used vastly in our world nowadays due to its advantages and it can be implemented in many industrial sectors or even in the medical sector and food industry sector. Nozzle is a component that has been utilized in waterjet which is employed in a wide range of engineering applications to control the rate of flow, velocity, and the jet pressure of the water. This paper discusses the CFD analysis on a pure waterjet nozzle to obtain the output of the water that jets out from three different diameters of nozzle and select the effective nozzle diameter to be used for the fruit peeling and cutting process. The pressure used for the analysis are 200MPa, 300MPa and 400MPa, which was analysed for three different nozzle diameter 0.76mm, 1.02mm and 1.27mm. From CFD analysis, it is established that as the pressure loss of the water jet increases, the outlet velocity of the jet increases. Furthermore, for fruit peeling and cutting process the impact angle of the nozzle should be prioritised as the peeling of the fruit should be smooth and even before cutting the fruit. Thus, the most suitable parameters were found to be 400MPa and 1.02mm of pressure and nozzle diameter respectively. This will allow for the intended fruit cutting process with a stand-off distance that can be ranged from 1mm to 9mm.