Selecting a woven wire screen for utmost separation service

In the screening application, for the best quality product and supreme efficiency needs precautions screen choice. This article shows how to select the right woven wire screen for your applications.

A screen or separator or called sifter mechanically separates dry free flowing materials by particle size by moving the material with respect to screen. Every screen is circular or rectangular and is connected to a frame in an assembly named as screen deck. The screener can be utilized in the various applications named as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food products, minerals, pigments, eradicate fines or grade material. In these applications, selecting the right screen is the crucial factor in obtaining the best separation service.

Many screeners utilize woven wire screen with square openings that are described by mesh count, wire diameter, opening size and open area %. According to US systems the screens are described by mesh count and wire diameter. The mesh count describes the count of wires per linear inch. Specifying a wire mesh in countries by using the metric system is slightly more logical as the screen is mentioned by its opening size and is wire diameter or open area%.

Woven wire Inconel mesh screen is developed in high magnitudes by using the combinations of mesh count and

wire diameter. For use in dry bulk material, you need to choose single or three types of screen cloth- market grade, mill grade and tensile bolting cloth.

Many woven wire screens are constructed from stainless steel. Steel types 304 and 316 are commonly used for screening granules and powders.

Select opening size

The opening size is the crucial factor to choose when choosing a screen as it has the major impact on the screen’s separation quality. However before you select the opening size, you should know the specifications of final product that depend on scalping, fine removal or grading.

Stainless steel woven wire is the common screen material that is used for separation of dry bulk solids. In few applications, the screens used are not woven wire mesh but perforated plate containing round perforations instead square holes, it is stronger and sturdier than woven wire mesh. The perforated plate also offers smooth surface to the flowing material that helps separating extended particles from granules or spherical, evenly shaped particles. The round holes offer a more precise opening as the circular holes do not have square openings’s bigger diagonal dimension. Although the plate has a small open area% that decreases capacity and makes the plate sensitive to blinding. A perforated plate screen is commonly used in eradicating streamers and strands from the plastic pellets.

The screeners consist of multiple screen decks to separate material into different discharge streams. Every stream has its specific particle size distribution and generally single or more of discharge streams consist of final product that often has specific limiting magnitude of bigger and fine particles permitted in it. For grading, it is essential to select the correct opening size for a replacement screen because any variation in the opening size can affect the screened products.