The potential application of plain waterjet for surface treatment of stone materials represents a very interesting alternative to technologies traditionally employed for this task, like bush-hammering, sand-blasting and flaming. At the University of Cagliari in co-operation with CNR, considerable research has been carried out by the AQUAVIS scientific staff, using either abrasive or plain waterjet, stationary or pulsed, generated through a fan-type nozzle aiming at obtaining an evenly treated surface.
A particular goal was that of developing a technique enabling to make engravings on the stone in order to achieve special aesthetic effects. The experimental results obtained on a broad set of rocks show that the technology is viable on both technical and economic grounds, allowing to obtain excellent results at a relatively low processing cost by resorting to multiple line nozzles.
