Sells Angles, Hot Rolled Plates, Beams & Sections, Expanded Metal +8
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Steel sheet or plate slit and stretched in one operation into a rigid mesh of diamond-shaped openings. Because no metal is punched out, expanded metal is lighter per square metre than the sheet it was made from and stronger for its weight than wire mesh, with no welds or joints to fail. It is used for walkways, guards, fences, plaster lath and façade screens.
Expanded metal is made on an expanding press: the sheet is fed forward a small amount at each stroke, and a stepped knife slits and stretches a row of strands in one movement; alternate strokes are offset by half a diamond, so the slits open into a continuous diamond pattern. The mesh is lighter per square metre than the original sheet — often by 50 % or more — because it covers a larger area.
As it leaves the press the strands are twisted, and the mesh is 'standard' or 'raised', with a three-dimensional texture that gives grip and stiffness and is used for walkways and treads. Passed through a flattening mill, it becomes 'flattened' expanded metal with a smooth surface, used for guards, partitions, shelving and façades.
A mesh is described by the long way of the diamond (LWD), the short way (SWD), the strand width and the base thickness. The open area and the load the mesh can carry follow from these; manufacturers' tables give load capacities for walkway meshes over given spans. In American practice dimensions and tolerances are set by ASTM F1267 and the Expanded Metal Manufacturers Association's EMMA 557; the former British standard BS 405 was withdrawn in 2019.
Expanded metal is made in the Gulf by local mesh manufacturers and is widely used in industrial walkways, cable and pipe racks, security fencing, render lath for blockwork and in decorative façades and sunscreens.
A mesh is ordered as diamond size (SWD × LWD), strand width and thickness, material and finish, and sheet size — for example 'raised, 25 × 60 mm diamond, 3 mm strand, 2 mm thick, galvanized, 1250 × 2500 mm'.
| Region | Standard | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| USA | ASTM F1267 ASTM |
Metal, expanded, steel — types (standard and flattened), classes and dimensional tolerances |
| USA | EMMA 557 | Expanded Metal Manufacturers Association (NAAMM) standards for expanded metal — terminology, tolerances and load tables |
| UK | BS 405 BSI |
Uncoated expanded metal carbon steel sheets for general purposes — withdrawn in 2019 without a direct replacement |
| Europe | EN 10025-2 CEN-CENELEC |
Hot-rolled structural steel used as base material for heavy mesh |
| Europe | EN 10346 CEN-CENELEC |
Galvanized steel sheet used as base material |
Grade equivalents and the standards bodies: Steel grades & standards
Steel Mills - Agents & Traders · Stockist - Distributor · Other Steel Users · Dubai
Steel Mills - Agents & Traders · Coil Service Center · Stockist - Distributor · Fabrication · Jeddah
Steel Mills - Agents & Traders · Coil Service Center · Stockist - Distributor · Dammam
Steel Mills - Agents & Traders · Stockist - Distributor · Other Steel Users · Dubai
Steel Mills - Agents & Traders · Coil Service Center · Stockist - Distributor · Fabrication · Jeddah
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