Patent ID: 6409864
Filing Date: 2002-06-25
Classification: B01D,Y10T

Abstract:
A method of forming a pleated filter comprising: passing a flat strip of filter medium of preselected width into a pleating zone to pleat the filter medium into adjacent pleats having opposed faces of preselected depth with troughs therebetween; passing said pleated filter medium from said pleating zone into a spacer insert zone to insert an individual and separate selected spacer member have a longitudinally extending screen-forming body portion with selectively spaced, crossing strand sets, each set including a plurality of like strands, into each of said troughs to extend longitudinally along the length of each of said troughs with the selectively spaced crossing strand of one set having differing preselected cross-sections from the other set and positioned between opposed filter medium faces of adjacent pleats to provide sufficient thickness and flow-through openings to separate said adjacent pleats and maximize fluid flow through said pleats by insuring the spacing between adjacent pleats and insuring fluid flow through said crossing strand sets; and, passing said spacer inserted pleated filter medium from said spacer insert zone to a severing zone to separate said spacer inserted pleated filter medium into preselected lengths of spacer inserted pleated filter medium units.