Mining

The flexibility (ability to be bent without breaking) and malleability (the ability to withstand plastic deformation without fracture) of our products can be designed according to customer needs. Through a careful selection of materials, mesh structure, and tooling design, we can produce mesh components in an almost limitless range of shapes including sheets (blankets), highly flexible hollow mesh tubes, and 3-dimensional rigid structures such as prisms, cubes, spheres and doughnuts, etc.

Depending on the design of the mesh and the materials used, knitted wire mesh structures can absorb energy elastically i.e. with no permanent deformation unless its elastic limit is exceeded. Typical applications include oven door seals where the mesh is behaving as a tubular spring compressed along its length. Plastic energy absorption occurs where the energy absorbed by the mesh structure is dissipated as heat. For example, in bump stops and vibration isolators applications (see also High Resilience).

Porosity can be defined as the percentage of free (or empty) space contained in the total volume of a given structure. The types of materials and manufacturing processes used in the production of our knitted mesh components allow the porosity to be almost infinitely controlled from almost zero to >98% void volume. This feature also facilitates the control of pore size and permeability levels allowing engineers to design products of varying strength and densities for use in filtration and other applications where the control of fluid or solids flow is critical.

Resilience can be defined as the ability of a material to absorb energy when deformed and to release that energy on unloading. The feature is particularly beneficial in applications such as seals (often incorporating resilient cores), gaskets and vibration isolators for use in both high and low temperature environments. Our engineers can work with customers to select the materials and manufacturing methods required to configure a product that will perform to the most exacting specifications.

Knitted mesh is used to form an enclosure that acts as Faraday Cage to block electromagnetic fields. This phenomenon is used to screen (protect) sensitive electronic equipment from external radio frequency interference (RFI) and enhance electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). Faraday Cages are also used to enclose devices that produce RFI, such as radio transmitters, to prevent their radio waves from interfering with nearby electronic equipment. These knitted mesh screens can be produced from a wide range of materials including tin-plated copper or copper-plated steel and formed as cooling vents, flexible cable jointing ‘bandages’, and resilient joint seals with elastomer cores for inspection hatches or doors and windows, etc.

Materials can be selected and processed, in any of a huge number of possible variants, to produce knitted mesh components that will withstand the conditions experienced in the most arduous of operational environments. Corrosion resistance and fatigue tests at up to 1,000°C can be conducted on-site with products typically being used in aerospace, automotive, refractory, cryogenic and marine environments.