Expanded metal mesh is also called pulledd plate wire mesh. A rigid piece of metal that has been slit and drawn into an open mesh pattern in a single operation. It is stronger, lighter in weight and more rigid than the original base metal.

Expanded metal are produced from solid sheets or plates of carbon, galvanized and stainless steel, as well as aluminum and a variety of alloys of copper, nickel, silver, titanium, and other metals. Conventional mesh is formed in a diamond pattern. It has other pattern of square, round, triangle, scale-like opening.

Expanded metal mesh has a wide range of uses, graceful shapes , strong processing capability. A major advantage of expanded is that the mesh is formed from a single piece of material  and  the process is not  wasteful and therefore cost effective. 

Standard expanded metal : Lightweight;  Economical; Slip-resistant surface; Low Maintenance; Can be bent or formed in any direction; U-edging for finished edges . Flattened expanded metal:  Lightweight;Economical;Versatile;Low Maintenance;Can be bent or formed in any direction, U-edging for finished edges.

Standard Expanded Metals:  Expanded metal as it comes off the machine.  The strands and bonds are set at a uniform angle to the plane of the sheet. This adds strength and rigidity, allows air circulation, distributes the load on the metal to the supporting frames as well as making a skid resistant surface.  Standard expanded metal is often superior in structural properties to the parent metal, and always to its equivalent flattened product.

Flattened Expanded Metal:  Manufactured by passing the standard expanded sheet through a cold roll reducing mill parallel to the LWD.  By flattening the sheet, the bonds and strands are turned down to produce a smooth and flat surface, reducing the overall thickness and elongating the diamond pattern (LWD).  Flattened is best used in instances where abrasion or appearance is an issue