Masked micro-channel machining in aluminum alloy and borosilicate glass using abrasive water jet micro-machining

Abrasive water jets (AWJs) have recently been used to mill unmasked features as narrow as 600 μm. This paper investigated the use of metal masks in order to decrease this minimum possible feature width in Al6061-T6 and borosilicate glass. Although there was under-etching on the channel sidewalls below the mask edges, it was nevertheless found that masked channels could be machined that were between 2–3 times narrower with 11% lower centerline...