Flat steel 3 mm and more thick, rolled from slabs on a reversing plate mill or cut from heavy hot rolled coil, and supplied in flat pieces rather than coils. Plate is the material of bridges, buildings, storage tanks, pressure vessels, ships, offshore platforms, heavy machinery and large-diameter welded pipes, and it is bought by grade for strength, toughness and weldability.
Also called
Steel plate
Heavy plate
MS plate
HR plate
Quarto plate
Boiler plate
Ship plate
A36 plate
S355 plate
A516 Gr.70
AR
ألواح الصلب المدرفلة على الساخن
ZH
热轧中厚板
DE
Warmgewalzte Grobbleche
FR
Tôles fortes laminées à chaud
ES
Chapas gruesas laminadas en caliente
IT
Lamiere da treno laminate a caldo
TR
Sıcak haddelenmiş kalın levha
RU
Горячекатаный толстый лист
Main formsPlates from a plate mill (discrete or 'quarto'), plates cut from coil, normalised, TMCP and quenched & tempered plate
Typical sizesThickness 3–150 mm commonly (to 400 mm and more on order); width 1,500–4,000 mm; length 6–12 m and longer
Main standardsEN 10029, EN 10025-2/-3/-4/-6, EN 10028, EN 10225, ASTM A6 / A20, ASTM A36, A516, A572, API 2H / 2W, JIS G3101 / G3106, GB/T 3274
Typical usesBuildings and bridges, storage tanks, pressure vessels and boilers, ships and offshore, LSAW pipe, heavy machinery
Overview
Most plate over about 20 mm, and all wide plate, is rolled on a reversing plate mill (often called a quarto mill for its four-high stands): a reheated slab is rolled back and forth, first crosswise to reach the width, then lengthwise to the thickness. The plate is levelled, cooled, cut to size by shear, torch or plasma and inspected. Thinner plate, up to about 20–25 mm, is also cut from heavy hot rolled coil on cut-to-length lines; that plate follows the coil tolerances of EN 10051, while mill plate follows EN 10029.
How the plate is rolled and heat treated decides its properties. As-rolled plate is the plain structural product. Normalised or normalising-rolled plate (+N) has a fine, uniform grain and good toughness. Thermomechanically rolled plate (TMCP, +M) reaches high strength with low carbon equivalent, so it welds easily — the basis of modern ship, offshore and line pipe plate. Quenched and tempered (Q&T) plate gives the highest strengths and is also used for wear-resistant grades — see wear-resistant steel.
Grades follow the application: structural steels to EN 10025 and ASTM A36 / A572 for buildings and bridges; pressure-vessel steels to EN 10028 and ASTM A516 / A537 for tanks, boilers and vessels; normal and higher-strength ship plate (A, B, D, E, AH36, DH36, EH36) approved by classification societies; offshore steels to EN 10225 and API 2H / 2W; and plate with through-thickness properties (Z-quality, EN 10164) for heavily welded joints.
The Gulf is a large consumer of plate for oil and gas, petrochemical and desalination plants, storage tanks, steel structures, shipbuilding and repair, and LSAW pipe mills. Plate rolling capacity in the GCC is small, so most plate is imported, chiefly from China, Japan, Korea, India and Europe. Oil and gas projects usually specify ASTM, API or EN grades with additional company requirements on chemistry, toughness and testing. MESteel publishes a monthly Middle East HR plate import price.
Forms & sizes
Plates are ordered by thickness × width × length, grade, delivery condition and tolerance class. Mass is 7.85 kg/m² per millimetre of thickness — see the plate weights table, or the steel weight calculator for other sizes.
Mill plate
Thickness 6–150 mm (and heavier), width 1,500–4,000 mm, length up to about 18–25 m; mill edge or trimmed
Plate from coil
3–25 mm thick, up to about 2,000 mm wide, cut to length; lower cost, tolerances to EN 10051
Common sizes
1500 × 6000, 2000 × 6000, 2000 × 12000, 2500 × 12000 mm, and 6 × 20 ft / 8 × 40 ft in American supply
Delivery conditions
As rolled, normalised or normalising-rolled (+N), thermomechanically rolled (+M), quenched and tempered (+QT)
Processing
Shot-blasted and primed, cut to shapes, bevelled, rolled into shells, ultrasonic tested
Flat products for pressure purposes — Part 2 non-alloy and alloy steels with elevated-temperature properties (P265GH, P355GH), Part 3 normalised fine-grain (P355N, P355NL1)
Steel Mills - Agents & Traders · Stockist - Distributor · Base Materials · Dubai
