Follow The Lee Company
Contamination is a very serious problem in any spacecraft, and although manufacturers do their utmost to prevent it, some contamination may still persist even after launch. Lee safety screens have been widely used in spacecraft applications. Our laser drilled screens are designed to resist titanic forces and corrosive fluids and will stand up to the full tank pressure of a rocket.
The Lee Company offers a huge variety of standard designs spanning a wide range of sizes, materials, retention methods, filtration ratings, and even technology. In fact, The Lee Company is the original inventor of drilled screen technology that has provided the industry with a robust, cost-effective, and easily customizable design that withstands burst pressures up to 7500 psid.
Custom Safety Screens for Unique Spacecraft
No two spacecraft models are alike, which means that designers may not be able to source safety screens as commercial off-the-shelf parts. The Lee Company is capable of rapidly designing, fabricating, and scaling the production of space-grade safety screens to any desired specification. We can create custom brazing designed to resist high temperatures or designs milled from a single steel bar without any brazing at all. We’ve created screens that are as wide as a foot across or as small as just an eighth of an inch. The pedigree of our safety screens includes use in crewed spacecraft – if astronauts trust their lives to our products, so can you.
Over 50% of Lee safety screens are special products designed to meet the requirements of a specific application. Our capabilities far exceed our standard product line, including, for example, laser drilled, drilled hole sizes between 25 micron and 1500 micron, a wide variety of materials, higher burst and collapse pressure ratings, or unique envelopes optimized for high flow capacity, custom mounting, or integrated bypass mechanisms.
| Standard Installation Configurations | |
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Flange Mounting is perhaps the most common installation technique as it is simple and economical. |
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Boss Mounting involves a threaded installation method that permits easy removal for maintenance. Some form of anti-rotation locking is recommended. |
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Insert Retention utilizes the proven Lee Insert Principle. This technique is ideal for simple installation directly into a fluid passageway. |
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Boss access is a convenient mounting technique that permits easy removal for cleaning or inspection. |
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L-4 installation features three locking fingers that are expanded outward, locking the screen in a fluid passageway. The L-4 technique permits easy removal for inspection or cleaning. This is ideal for creating bidirectional flow. |
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Spring-Retained installation is an inexpensive mounting technique suitable for unidirectional flow in applications requiring burst pressures below 500 psid. The spring O.D. is slightly larger than the I.D. of the mounting hole. A special tool is used to twist the spring into the hole. |
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TWIS™ installation is designed for low pressure applications and provides unidirectional flow. The screen is readily twisted in or out of the bore for inspection or cleaning. |
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HI-BAR® Screens in Adapters are often used as inlet screens to actuators, optimizing space and weight. These adapters are available in AS-straight thread and ring locked styles complete from The Lee Company. |
Learn how The Lee Company created a custom metric designed to standardize the strength and burst rating of safety screens across the industry. Explore the resources below for more information about our screens and our history with space exploration.
Always verify flow calculations by experiment.
*There are many parameters to consider when determining V-Factor. Click here for more information.
