Why metal fiber is made by bundle drawing
Drawing metal down to 1–100 µm is not the hard part. The hard part is holding diameter consistency, surface integrity and batch-to-batch repeatability once the filament is only microns thick. Huitong uses bundle drawing: a number of wires are encased in a sheath, the assembly is drawn to final diameter, and the sheath is removed electrolytically to release individual filaments.
What each step decides
Surface treatment governs interfacial bonding; bundling and drawing govern diameter tolerance; heat treatment removes work hardening and restores material properties; electrolytic separation determines whether filaments release cleanly without sticking. If any one step drifts, the defect surfaces downstream as filament breakage or diameter scatter.
Why one route covers many alloys
The sheath carries the drawing load, so the core material does not need good cold-drawing ductility. FeCrAl, nickel, titanium, copper, tantalum and even Hastelloy run through the same process with different windows. That is what lets metal fiber enter high-temperature and highly corrosive duty.
From fiber to sintered felt
Sintered felt is the downstream form: fiber is air-laid into a three-dimensional web, then vacuum-sintered so that contact points bond metallurgically. Stacking layers separates filtration rating from dirt-holding capacity — something a single-layer wire mesh cannot do.