5b. Stainless Steel Afterburner Clamps

5b. Stainless Steel Afterburner Clamps

The afterburner clamps are 12 gage Stainless Steel ring segments that will be used to bolt the afterburner can flange to the transition elbow flange. Any possibility of 2,000 degree hot gas exhaust leaks at this joint will be eliminated by using special EGC graphite gaskets. A CAD drawing of the clamps was EMailed to Milco Waterjets, Inc. in Huntington Beach, California. The machine shown below is the water jet used to cut out the clamps and "drill" all the holes accurately.

John Soto of Milco Waterjets, Inc. runs the computer controlled water jet. This machine easily cuts through exotic materials by creating a 25,000 PSI high pressure, high velocity stream of mere water pre-mixed with a powdered abrasive. This is a close-up of the slicing head of the water jet machine. Here you can see the cutting path (starting in the upper left) being made in this 1/2" thick graphite composite along with all the water flowing out below. This process creates minimum heat and distortion.

These are the finished F-18 Jet Bike's stainless steel clamping ring segments. They are shown here on top of the raw Stainless Steel sheet. Close-up of the afterburner ring clamp segments. Each hole is cut out, not drilled! The computer commands the pencil thin water jet stream to follow the outline of each small circle.

Retired Marine Major, Bob Johnson, shows where these waterjet cut ring segments will be used to firmly clamp the flange of the F-18 Jet Bike afterburner can to the flange of the transition elbow pipe.


John Soto of Milco Waterjets, Inc. runs the computer controlled water jet. This machine easily cuts through exotic materials by creating a 25,000 PSI high pressure, high velocity stream of mere water pre-mixed with a powdered abrasive.	This is a close-up of the slicing head of the water jet machine. Here you can see the cutting path (starting in the upper left) being made in this 1/2" thick graphite composite along with all the water flowing out below. This process creates minimum heat and distortion.


These are the finished F-18 Jet Bike's stainless steel clamping ring segments. They are shown here on top of the raw Stainless Steel sheet.	Close-up of the afterburner ring clamp segments. Each hole is cut out, not drilled! The computer commands the pencil thin water jet stream to follow the outline of each small circle.