Sintered wire mesh- Best screen choice for filtration applications

nickel wire mesh

Sintered wire mesh is widely used in filtration applications due to its bonded mesh. Various meshes are bonded together using heat & pressure to achieve a combination of advantages of each mesh layer resulting in optimum filtration process. Sintered wire mesh has a robust mesh structure that makes it resistant to physical loading. The smooth surface of sintered wire mesh also allows easier cleaning during backwashing.

Woven meshes are usually easily edge-frayed. A square inch of 100 mesh contains 200 wire strands touching at 10,000 contact points that are too many to bond one at a time by any other process. However, each point becomes securely fused if properly sintered. Small discs may then be punched from the cloth without any fraying which is critical in numerous applications such as medical filtration or aircraft hydraulic fluid filtration in which loose wires could cause catastrophic failure. Moreover, the mesh geometry becomes permanently fixed once the wires are fused in place. Wire can’t be shifted under pressure and therefore, the aperture size remains stable in service.

The sintering process involves heating and if the process atmosphere & cycle are appropriately controlled then the wire cloth is rendered bright & clean, completely ductile and metallurgically solution annealed. The overall tensile strength is improved in most weaves due to the bonding between the wires. Thermal & electrical conductivity are increased, formability & ductility are improved and the ability to retain shapes & hold pleats is improved.

Wire mesh is considered to be sintered properly only if the bonds are strong or if a large number of intersections are adequately bonded. Wire mesh isn’t sintered properly if wires get frayed easily. Sintering is performed to create new structures by laminating multiple layers of wire cloth together into laminates or composites of many varieties. A sintered laminate is a new material that is different from its component layers and becomes more than the sum of its parts.

A 325 x 2300 fine micron-rated filter mesh with .0014″ x .0010″ wire diameter & twilled Dutch weave has apertures of less than 10-12 microns and thickness of 0.003″. It is an easily damaged material that may have useful features provided by its fine pore structure but it has poor mechanical properties. After laminating the fine screen to a coarser mesh backup layer, the mesh gets more strength, support and thickness. The resultant two-layer laminate retains the filtration rating of the fine layer, and the mechanical properties of the coarser support layer. This combination of properties won’t be possible with any single mesh. There are various applications in which the sintered mesh is used such as sifting, dust barriers, filtration, sparging, screening and air intake protection. Various structures can be created using one layer of micron-rated filter mesh in combination with multiple layers of coarser meshes. The fine mesh may be sandwiched between protective layers to form a symmetrical structure. There are various applications of these structured meshes including hydraulic valve screens & bi-directional filtration media.

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