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A Buyer's Guide to Expanded Metal Mesh Foil

Author: Cheryl

Jan. 06, 2025

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A Buyer's Guide to Expanded Metal Mesh Foil

Expanded metal mesh foil provides exceptional conductivity or resistivity while maintaining an impressive strength-to-weight ratio. It boasts numerous advantages over perforated metals and woven wire mesh, making it highly advantageous across diverse applications.

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Key distinctions among different product types include the manufacturing methods, intended uses, and the attributes of the materials used. Expanded metal foil showcases distinct features that outperform traditional perforated and woven wire materials, including:

  • Improved Stability
  • Higher Strength
  • Outstanding Conductivity
  • Minimized Waste Production

Due to its ability to permit air, light, and fluids to flow through, expanded mesh is a favored choice in various industries. Its uniform diamond pattern enhances structural integrity during manufacturing, reducing the likelihood of unraveling that often occurs with woven mesh options.

The multiple benefits of expanded metal foil make it an optimal selection—it's lightweight, durable, and cost-effective.

Tailored Solutions with Expanded Mesh

Choosing the right company for expanded metal mesh is vital. It is essential to collaborate with a supplier that can help you define your specific needs and requirements.

To develop a personalized product, you'll need to provide your supplier with sufficient details during the quoting process. This information will help establish whether they can deliver a custom expanded metal mesh solution that meets your quality needs within your timeline.

The following details are essential for crafting your custom solution:

Selection of Raw Material Alloy

Identifying the right expanded metal mesh material is critical. Factors to consider include:

  • Expense
  • Resistance to Corrosion
  • Material Density
  • Material Hardness
  • Yield Strength
  • Tensile Strength
  • Material Elongation
  • Magnetic Properties
  • Bending Resistance

Each raw material alloy presents unique advantages tailored to your project specifications.

Thickness of Raw Material

Modern advancements have enabled the production of exceptionally thin expanded metal mesh foils, with the capability to expand down to 25 microns (0.001 inches).

Coil Width Specifications

With specialized leveling and expanding equipment, metal foils can now be expanded to widths exceeding 1 meter (over 40 inches).

Length of Raw Expand

Because expanded metal is notably lighter than other open-area materials, it is ideal for applications with weight restrictions. The length of the coil can be tailored, constrained primarily by the finished coil’s weight and raw material availability.

Mesh Configuration Parameters

The main dimensions defining expanded metal mesh are:

  • Strand Width (SW): Represents the amount of material required to create openings from the source substrate.
  • Short Way of the Diamond (SWD): The distance across the short axis of a diamond from the center of one joint to the adjacent joint.
  • Long Way of the Diamond (LWD): The distance along the diamond's long axis from one joint center to the next.

Flattening Requirements

For applications necessitating leveled materials, specify the thickness of the flattened product, denoted as the manufactured material thickness.

Compiling accurate measurement and specifications will assist your supplier in providing a precise quote tailored to your needs.

Understanding the Manufacturing of Expanded Metal Mesh

The process for manufacturing expanded metals comprises three critical steps:

  1. A raw material is fed into metal expanding machinery.
  2. This machinery slits and stretches the material to achieve the desired dimension and thickness based on customer specifications. This process is adaptable to a wide array of metals and polymers, including titanium, nickel, aluminum, and copper, among others.
  3. The expanded material is subsequently rewound once it exits the machinery, ensuring ease of delivery and application.

CThru Metals employs precision proprietary technology to cut metal foils into various shapes and thicknesses. The overall configuration of the expanded metal is dictated by the specific requirements of the customer.

Diverse Materials for Mesh Production

The fabrication of expanded metal mesh supports a broad spectrum of polymers and metals, each tailored for distinct environments and applications. Types of sheet metal expanded products include:

  • Copper expanded mesh
  • Titanium expanded mesh
  • Aluminum expanded mesh
  • Both steel and stainless steel expanded mesh

Additional materials utilized for expanded mesh production include:

  • Nickel
  • Monel (nickel alloy)
  • Plastic
  • Teflon
  • Brass
  • Phosphor Bronze
  • Silver

For greater insights, feel free to visit Haoshun Wire Mesh Manufacturing.

Applications of Expanded Metal Mesh

Expanded metal foil is a premium solution for industries requiring high-strength mesh materials. Its versatility provides the resilience, durability, and conductivity needed to support various products and systems.

Common applications include:

Protection Against Lightning Strikes

In the aerospace and wind turbine sectors, expanded metal mesh foil serves as an essential element. When incorporated into composite materials, it enhances lightning strike protection. After such an event, the lightweight mesh effectively disperses electrical energy without adding significant weight, preventing damage like delamination.

This singular material structure remains intact and offers consistent conductivity over extensive areas, capable of enduring lightning strikes of up to 200,000 amps.

EMI Shielding Applications

In the realm of electronics, expanded metal serves as a barrier against electromagnetic interference (EMI). Its uniform and electrically continuous surface facilitates effective shielding across a variety of electronic products.

Unlike woven meshes, expanded metal foils provide reliable shielding and consistent conductivity over numerous frequencies, suitable for:

  • Shielded Enclosures
  • Laminated Structures
  • Gaskets
  • Cable Shielding
  • Ventilation Screens

Renewable Energy Solutions

Innovations in renewable energy technologies leverage expanded metal’s unique properties for shielding and structural applications, notably in batteries and fuel cells.

Filtration Systems

Within the automotive industry, expanded metal functions as crucial support for oil filtration, airbag actuators, and hydraulic systems. Its robustness suits it for use as filter media and support in various industrial applications.

CThru Metals can help tailor the selection of metal or polymer geometries needed for filtration tasks, optimizing filter efficiency while extending the lifespan and minimizing internal corrosion.

Opt for CThru Metals for Your Expanded Metal Mesh Requirements

We possess the extensive expertise to manufacture custom expanded metal mesh foil in diverse thicknesses, shapes, and configurations, tailored to your applications.

As a leader in innovative expanded mesh solutions, we provide competitive pricing and expedited timelines, utilizing advanced manufacturing equipment that operates at double the speed of standard machinery.

For additional information, download our complimentary white paper detailing the expanded metal mesh process, and discover more about our custom capabilities.

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