Woven Wire Mesh

Woven Wire Mesh

Woven wire mesh is the main alternative to welding and is composed of perpendicular wires that are interlaced with each other. They are considered the most common type of wire cloth, and have a finer gauge and higher mesh count. The weave range is very broad, and they may have hexagonal or square openings. Woven wire mesh is used in applications like filtration, 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. The wires are sometimes crimped to add stability and strength because unraveling is a common problem when woven wire mesh is being cut to size.

Wire mesh is available in a number of different weave patterns, mainly plain, Dutch, twilled, twilled Dutch, reverse Dutch and five heddle weave. Plain weave is the simplest and most common type, where the warp wire is woven under and over each of the shute wires to make larger square openings. Dutch weave interlaces course warp wires and small, fine shute wires. The openings are very small, and this type of weave results in great strength. It is used mostly for filtration. 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, which is able to support heavy loads, has shute wires that weave over and under 5 warp wires.