The Applications of Perforated Materials

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Perforated materials are utilized in many different applications for various reasons. For example, they are mostly used as guards, shields, filters, and screens. These materials have the ability to control the passage of light, heat, air, solids, liquids, sound waves, and electromagnetic waves.

Uses of Perforated Materials

With these capabilities, perforated materials are typically found in OEM applications like dryer drums and clothes washer, exhaust components and automotive grills, speaker covers, computer cabinets, microwave ovens, grain dryers, airplane engine silencers, and many more.

Perforated materials—apart from OEM applications—are also utilized for their aesthetics in design and architectural applications, like privacy panels, fixtures, and facades. As shown in Table 1, a wide range of sectors use perforated materials for their numerous functions.

Table 1. Typical uses for perforated materials

By learning how perforated materials are often used in the design, architectural, and industrial applications, users can ascertain whether they need them for their applications. If at all there is a use for these materials, it becomes difficult to choose the most suitable pattern.

This may sound as simple as selecting a pattern that appears a certain way. But, it can be crucial to those applications in which the perforated materials need to perform in a particular way (that is, offer a level of electromagnetic shielding, attenuate a sound frequency, etc.).

There are several patterns that use square, round, diamond, decorative, slot, or hexagonal holes. For consumers, a few of the available styles and patterns may be accompanied by test results from separate laboratories relating to preferred properties.