Designing Advanced Filtration Media through Metal Additive Manufacturing

摘要

Traditional metal filters are manufactured from perforated plate which forms the filter support to withstand operational pressures and one or more layers of woven wire mesh to form the filter portion at the required level of filtration. The design freedoms and capabilities of additive manufacturing ( AM) technology provide the opportunity to design novel filter media with integrated support and filter portions that have defined aperture size and strand diameter. Maximizing the open area of a filter increases filtration efficiency. AM integrated filter support and filter portion designs were optimized and the resultant filter media discussed have the potential to decrease the end users' pumping energy requirements and so reduce energy costs and the inherent carbon footprint.