Woven Wire Mesh
The weave range of woven wire mesh is broad, and may be constructed to have hexagonal or square openings depending on the intended application. Woven wire mesh is used in applications such as filtration purposes, screen printing, sieving and air flow conditioning in a wide number of industries, including agricultural, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, automotive, aerospace, construction and engineering. The weave is comprised of evenly spaced vertical wires called warps and horizontal wires called shutes, which intersect at 90 degree angles, or at angles creating a specific pattern. The wires are sometimes crimped to add stability and strength to the mesh. Wire cloth is typically stored in rolls of varying widths and is then cut to the desired size for the application when needed, however unraveling is a common problem when woven wire mesh is being cut and crimping the wires helps to minimize this.
There are a number of different weave patterns used in the construction of woven wire mesh, mainly plain, Dutch, twilled, twilled Dutch, reverse Dutch and five heddle weave. Plain weave is the simplest type of weave and is the most commonly found in basic applications. In plain weave, the warp wire is woven under and over each of the shute wires to make larger square openings. Dutch weave however interlaces coarse warp wires and small, fine shute wires. The openings are very small, and this type of weave results in great strength allowing it to be used for heavier duty applications such as for filter screens. Twilled weaves lace shute wire alternately over and under 2 warp wires. The pattern is staggered on consecutive warp wires and looks like there are parallel diagonal lines. Twill Dutch weave is a combination of the previous two, and has the strength of Dutch weave with the finer openings of twilled weave. Reverse Dutch weave uses course warp wire and fine shute wire, and five heddle weave has shute wires that weave over and under 5 warp wires, creating a very strong woven cloth which is able to support heavy loads.
