Porous structures made of metallic wire mesh screens are receiving renewed interests from researchers due to their large potential for enhancing heat transfer. Accurate estimation of key porous parameters undoubtedly helps understand heat transfer mechanisms inside those porous structures. This study presents a new methodology for calculating volumetric porosity, specific surface area, and in-plane thermal conductivity for porous structures made of square-shaped and diamond-shaped wire screens. Analytical models were developed accordingly. Affecting factors including mesh number, wire diameter, compactness factor, and stacking patterns were systematically studied. This work, for the first time, considers the cases when the wire mesh screens are cold compressed. The models developed in this study are compared with typical existing models. Satisfactory agreement was shown. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.