How Is Wire Mesh Made?

06 May.,2024

 

How Is Wire Mesh Made?

What is Wire Mesh?

Wire mesh is a common type of metal screen consisting of parallel rows and intersecting columns of wire. Although similar in appearance and their applications, perforated metal sheet and expanded metal sheet are not types of wire mesh. Wire mesh comes in an almost limitless amount of shapes and sizes, and a large variety of materials and metal alloys.

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How is Wire Mesh Made?

The intersecting wires are typically joined together by welding or weaving – two of the more common forms of wire mesh. The solid wire used is usually made by progressively drawing down a metal in a series of round dies until the desired diameter has been achieved.

There are two common types of mesh:

  1. Welded Wire Mesh
  2. Woven Wire Mesh

Welded Wire Mesh

Welded wire mesh has intersecting rows and columns of parallel wires that are welded together at the intersection. Once the wire has been drawn down to the desired size, it is fed into a machine which welds the multiple rows of wire together at their intersection.

As the mesh is fed through the machine, a parallel line of welds is created simultaneously where the perpendicular lines meet. The next intersection of wires is then fed through the machine to be welded, and this process continues, joining each row of wires together. This machine typically welds the wires using electrical resistance as the source of heat. Although other welding methods could be employed, this is the usually most economical. Once the mesh has reached the desired length, it is cut by a shear, resulting in a sheet of flat and rigid welded wire mesh.

Woven Wire Mesh

Woven wire mesh has an array of intersecting wires, similar to a woven cloth. Typically, the wires are woven over and under the perpendicular wires producing a stable sheet. This pattern is known as a “Plain Weave Mesh”. For applications that require a more flexible sheet, a “Twill Weave” can be used.

This involves wire that is woven over 2 perpendicular wires, then under the next set of 2 perpendicular wires, and so on. Woven wire mesh has no welds on them. Instead, they are fed into a machine similar to a loom which feeds a straight wire through chosen weave pattern. The wires are then bent to the reverse position, and the next straight wire is fed through the pattern. The machine continues this process until the desired dimensions are reached and the completed wire mesh sheet is then cut to the desired size.

Applications

Welded wire mesh and woven wire mesh are used in many different fields. Several uses include:

  • Fences
  • Sifters
  • Grills
  • Machine and equipment safety barricades
  • Concrete reinforcement
  • Shelves
  • Cages

History , Manufacturing & Applications

Wire is one of the generic types of metallurgical products, together with plates, sheets, bars, tubes. Encyclopaediae generally define metallic wire as a “ single strand or rod of metal, usually cylindrical “. The history of wire making goes way back in Antiquity .

The first known writing relating to wire appears in the Bible (Ex.39:3): “ And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires...) However, archeological discoveries date the art of wire making to much earlier times, probably as far back as 4000 BC : a necklace containing gold wire was found in the tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh who reigned about 2750 BC and there are wire-containing jewelry and ornaments made by Assyrians  in the 1700's BC.

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The manufacturing of wire was for a long time limited to jewelry and similar decorative items using “soft” materials such as gold or bronze. Utilitarian uses started to appear in the latter years of BC, as shown by 3 bronze wires twisted into a cable  found in Pompei. For many centuries, wire was manufactured by hammering the ductile metals gold & bronze into thin sheets. Then hammers and files were used to transform the thin strips into short round pieces , which could  eventually be brazed into  longer wires . There is however evidence that even in the antique Egypt some wire were actually drawn through tapered holes , the crude predecessors of  “dies”.

Modern wire manufacturing done by drawing through dies can be traced to the 300 AD   to 700 AD period. Wire manufacturing by drawing through dies became common in the 12th to 14th centuries, in France, England and Germany: in those times, wire was drawn by hand. German wire manufacturers started to use waterpower to replace hand operation in the Middle Age. Also, German manufacturers of the Düsseldorf area discovered about 1650 the advantage of using lubricants (such as stale beer!) to draw hard steel.

Thus, the basic method of wire manufacturing, i.e. drawing a soft metal through a hard, incompressible die has remained unchanged for centuries. Obviously, modern industrial wire manufacturing has developed for productivity and quality a number of sophisticated technologies pertaining to:

- Wire rod  (feed material coming from the hot rolling mill) quality and special coatings

- Drawing  lubricants  (Na or Ca based soap–type compounds)

- Diamond (oil drawing) or carbide dies (dry drawing) of increasing high technology

- Very productive highly automated multi-hole drawing machines

- Continuous processes combining cleaning, annealing, coating and skin pass sizing

The above narrative obviously only pertains  to the “metallic wire” and not  to the increasingly important glass wire involved in the  “fiber optics” industry.

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