Stainless Steel Wire Mesh (304 | 316 | 316L)

Stainless steel wire mesh can be woven, knitted, welded.

• Woven wire mesh is interlaced with warp and weft (woof / filling) wires at right angles. So these two distinct sets of wires are straight.

• However, the wire of knitted stainless steel mesh is meandering. Therefore, the mesh can stretch in all directions. Sometimes it will be compressed to form the final product.

• Welded wire mesh is a mesh where a series of parallel longitudinal wires welded to cross wires.

So the elasticity of knitted wire mesh is better than woven wire mesh. Moreover, woven mesh wire is better than welded mesh.

Here we mainly introduce stainless steel woven mesh. Usually we specify the needed mesh by confirming material, weaving type, mesh counts, wire diameter and hole size.

Type 304 is the most common stainless steel because of its good performance in a wide range of atmospheric environments and many corrosive media. In addition, the price of ss 304 mesh screen is moderate. So, if no special requirements about stainless steel grades, we assume that 304 stainless steel mesh screen is acceptable.

316 stainless steel possesses less chromium, more nickel and molybdenum than Type 304. Therefore, 316 stainless steel mesh screen provides better corrosion resistance. Moreover, its price is typically higher than 304 stainless steel wire cloth.

As we can see in the following chemical composition chart, 316L is the same as 316 except with lower carbon element. In other words, 316L carbon element is restricted to 0-0.03%, but below 0.08% is ok for 316. Therefore, they provide the same corrosion resistance. Moreover, lower carbon content makes 316L stainless steel wire mesh resistant sensitization during welding.

304 | 316 | 316L stainless steel chemical composition by weight (%)

304, 316 and 316L are also referred to as:

According to different interlacing of warp and weft (woof / filling) wires and different wire diameter, weave can be divided into plain, twill, plain dutch, twill dutch, etc.

Mesh counts / sizes: the number of openings / apertures / holes per liner inch.

• Plain / Twill weave: 2 – 635 mesh
• Dutch weave: 12X64 – 500X3200 mesh

Sometimes we also use micron size to specify our mesh. For example

• Stainless steel filter mesh 5 micron
• 40 / 75 / 250 micron mesh screen
• 70 micron stainless steel mesh
• 300 micron stainless steel mesh filter
• Or others

Micron size typically refers to the nominal opening size. For instance, 1 micron mesh means the mesh has 0.001 mm nominal hole size. That’s because 1 micron is equal to 0.001 mm.

Wire diameter: the thickness of one single wire.

Opening / Aperture / Hole size: the distance between two adjacent parallel wires

• Good corrosion and rust resistance
• Acid and Alkali resistance
• Good chemical resistance
• High strength and excellent mechanical strength
• Smooth surface and durability with good abrasion resistance

304, 316 and 316L stainless steel wire meshes provide good corrosion resistance. However, all of them are not completely rust proof. Because there are many environments that they cannot endure. For example Type 304 stainless steel is only resistant to 3% sulfuric acid, and Type 316 is resistant to 20% acid at room temperature. So Type 304 SS is rarely used in contact with sulfuric acid.

• Sorting and screening abrasives, liquids, powers, solids, etc.
• Filtering
• Protecting
• Supporting
• Printing (industries like electronics, textiles, ceramics, glass, etc)
• Decorating

It is widely used in industries of Food, Beer Brewing, Wine Making, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Architectural, Automotive, Oil Field & Refinery, Aerospace, Wind Tunnels, Mining & Quarrying, Basket Fabrication.

It can be customized as requirement, and it can also be cut, formed, welded, etc.

For different environments, the shape and size of final products are typically different. Someone needs stainless steel mesh discs in round, oval, square, rectangular, triangular or other shapes. But others may need wire mesh tubes (cylinder / cone shape), stainless steel wire mesh baskets (round / rectangular / square / other shape), mesh sieves for laboratory testing, wire mesh strainers, etc.

The following are some photos as reference.

• Mesh discs

• Wire mesh disc

• Wire mesh tubes

• Woven wire mesh baskets

• Mesh sieves