How Galvanised Wire Mesh is Made?

Galvanised stainless steel is an extremely durable and long-lasting material. Pipes, nails, beams, plates, bars, rods and other industrial products are often galvanised to ensure decades of strength and corrosion resistance.

 

How Galvanised Wire Mesh is Made?

The thick, strong zinc outer layer is what makes galvanised hardware cloth so strong and resilient. How does it obtain this coating? It can be done in several ways: by hot dipping and electro-galvanising. Each process is outlined below.

 

Hot-dip galvanising

The hot dip galvanising method involves dipping the base metal into a molten pool of zinc. The three main steps in the hot-dip galvanising process are surface treatment, galvanising and post-treatment. First, the base metal must be cleaned mechanically, chemically or both to ensure that a high quality bond can be formed between the base metal and the zinc coating.

Galvanized Welded Wire Mesh

After cleaning, the base metal is fluxed to remove any residual oxides that may remain after the cleaning process. The base metal is then immersed in a heated bath of zinc to form a metallurgical bond. This molten bath begins the metallurgical bond between the zinc and the receiving metal. After the metal is removed from the plating bath, exposure to the atmosphere results in a reaction in which pure zinc mixes with oxygen to form zinc oxide.

 

Electro galvanizing

Unlike hot dipping, electro-galvanising (or electrolytic galvanising) is a cold process. Zinc particles are used to create an organic solvent, which is applied to the surface of the steel. This causes a reaction between the substances to produce a zinc-steel alloy. When the solvent evaporates, the zinc remains on the metal. The zinc electroplating method uses the current in an electrolyte solution to transfer zinc ions to the base metal.

 

This involves the electro-reduction of positively charged zinc ions to zinc metal, which is then deposited onto the positively charged material. A grain refiner may also be added, which helps to ensure a smooth zinc coating on the steel. Electroplating with zinc is usually applied continuously to a roll of sheet metal.

Galvanized Welded Wire Mesh

Galvanising can be done before or after the manufacture of the wire mesh - either in woven or welded form. Galvanising before woven wire mesh or galvanising before welded wire mesh means that the individual wires used to manufacture the wire mesh have themselves been galvanised before the wire mesh is woven or welded. Depending on the mesh (or opening size) and wire diameter, this is usually the cheaper option, especially if custom fabrication is required.

 

Galvanised after weaving, welded wire mesh after galvanising, as the name implies. The material is usually made from carbon or plain steel and is usually placed in a galvanising bath, resulting in a woven or welded galvanised specification. Generally, this option is more expensive, depending on availability and other variables, but does provide a higher level of corrosion resistance. This increased level of corrosion resistance is most evident at joints or crossings in welded wire mesh specifications after galvanising.

 

One of the main advantages of galvanised wire mesh, particularly the galvanised welded specification, is that it tends to be available in a variety of opening sizes and diameters of wire. For example, mesh sizes, such as 4" x 4", 2" x 2", 1" x 1" and ½" x ½". are often easily available from stock in a few commonly used diameters of wire.

 

Due to its attractive price and corrosion resistance, galvanised wire mesh is very popular among users in the wire mesh industry. Often, galvanised wire mesh is specified for applications requiring relatively large opening sizes. Bear in mind that galvanising a relatively fine mesh after weaving may clog openings and make it unusable in many applications. It is for this reason that typically, 10 x 10 meshes and finer will be manufactured as woven items prior to galvanising.

 

For more information about the metal mesh products, welcome to contact us. Best Steel will be happy to help you out!