Triangular Wire in Sand Control Screens | ERQI WIRE

Sand control screens work in the least friendly corner of the industry: a pressure drop across the screen that never stops, sand grinding across the surface, and formation fluids that are often sour or chloride-rich. The wire section has to answer all three at once, which is why it is specified as carefully as the slot itself.

What the triangular section contributes

The V-shape gives a slot that is narrow at the flow face and wider behind it, so sand that enters the slot keeps moving instead of packing at the surface. That self-cleaning geometry holds up under continuous pressure drop, where a parallel-walled slot would pack solid. The section also carries the load: on a premium screen running 150–300 micron slots, every wire is a small beam spanning between rods, and the across-flat size is what keeps the slot from distorting under differential pressure.

The wire details that decide screen life

• Tip radius. A fully sharp tip cuts the cleanest slot but chips under impact from the sand stream; a controlled 0.05–0.15 mm radius keeps the edge through installation and service.
• Across-flat tolerance. The slot is the sum of two wire faces. If across flats drifts, every slot on the screen drifts with it — ±0.02 mm or better on the face width is what holds slot variation inside the design band.
• Repeatability coil to coil. A screen consumes hundreds of metres of wire. One soft or oversized coil in the middle changes the behaviour of the whole screen, so consistency matters more than any single measurement.

Material

316L is the baseline for injection wells and most producers. Where chlorides, CO2 or H2S are part of the picture, duplex 2205 and higher alloys enter the conversation. The drawing process is the same across grades, so the section does not have to be compromised to get the corrosion performance.

The 1.8 × 2.7 mm section on the triangular wire page is a common starting point for screen tubes. Why the section beats round stock is explained in why screens use triangular wire, and the full range sits on triangular wire. Contact takes a drawing or a slot spec directly.