Water jet cutting process has its own advantage against machining, laser or plasma.

Water jet cutting process typically uses only water and/or granite to erode the material. Therefore, any heat produced in the material while cutting is instantly cooled down by the water stream. It doesn't affect the micro structure and hence eliminate any secondary processing steps.

Thank you for the answer. Hence, we can opt for cutting the material by water jet cutting or we can directly use the 16 mm forged/cast material.

Any literature supports the same?

Wire EDM is one of the method you can use, advantage of EDM is surface finish is better. But it may increase production cost.

Here you go:

1. Abrasive water jets, however, do not produce heat that could alter the structure of the material being cut, and thus the strength is retained.

WATER JET MACHINING: AN ADVANCE MANUFACTURING PROCESS. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275954805_WATER_JET_MACHINING_AN_ADVANCE_MANUFACTURING_PROCESS .

2. The most common form of waterjet machining is Abrasive Waterjet machining, in which additional abrasive particles are added to the jet to enhance material removal rates. This increases the efficiency of the process significantly, however in many applications the residual abrasive particles that become embedded in the machined surface are a source of concern. These particles have been shown to reduce fatigue life and in addition lead to another problems with subsequent processes such as welding, or surface deposition.

Reference:Conference Paper The Impact of Plain Waterjet Machining on the Surface Integr...

As stated before, you will have some sort of surface deposition that will require a second step to remove those particles. Unless this part is something critical, you should be fine cutting it with a water jet. EDM process does have some effect on the microstructure located at the surface of the material being cut.

Hi

The key advantage of water jet cutting is that it does not induce any thermal residual stresses therefore you are minimizing the potential for distortion form the cutting process The disadvantage is that it is very very slow. The quality of the cut will still be dependent on pressure. So you can still end up with drag lines, as per oxy cutting, which require rectification. EDM cutting is also very very slow and while it basically vaporises the material will still leave a very thin layer of oxidized material which may have to be removed prior to your next fabrication process. What are the dimensions of your plate and what is the next fabrication step

According to cost calculations if you require 16mm billet it cost you hefty if you do water jet cutting from 75 mm though the micro structure doesn't, Casting a billet is cheaper than water jet and coming to forging it depends on application of component.

Abrasive water jet cutting dont affect the microestructure of the cutting surface.

Wire electric discharge machining produce a heat affected zone, but is very little as 100 micrometers.

From economical point of view, the better option is to take a casting or forging part with the thickness of 16mm.

Thank you everyone for all these valuable suggestions, I will be using casting/forging of 16 mm thick plate based on some critical reasons.

Sincere regards,