Wide, thick rectangular semi-finished stainless steel, continuously cast at the melt shop and hot rolled into coil, sheet and plate. Slabs are mostly used inside integrated groups, but a traded market exists between melt shops and independent re-rollers, especially in Asia.
Also called
Stainless slab
SS slab
Continuously cast slab
304 slab
Stainless semi-finished
AR
بلاطات (سلاب) من الفولاذ المقاوم للصدأ
ZH
不锈钢板坯
DE
Edelstahl-Brammen
FR
Brames en acier inoxydable
ES
Planchones de acero inoxidable
IT
Bramme in acciaio inossidabile
TR
Paslanmaz çelik slab
RU
Слябы из нержавеющей стали
Main formsContinuously cast slabs, as cast or surface ground
Typical sizesThickness about 150–250 mm; width 1000–2000 mm; length 5–12 m
Main standardsEN 10088-3, ASTM A240 (grade basis), JIS G4304 (grade basis), GB/T 20878
Typical usesHot rolling into coil (Steckel and hot strip mills) and quarto plate
Overview
Stainless slabs are made in the same melt shops as billets: scrap, ferronickel or nickel pig iron and ferrochrome are melted in an electric arc furnace (or, in Indonesia and China, smelted from laterite ore in an integrated line), refined in an AOD or VOD converter and cast on a slab caster. Because stainless is sensitive to surface defects, slabs are usually ground all over before rolling to remove oscillation marks, slag patches and cracks.
Slabs are rarely seen by end users: they move from the caster to the group's own hot strip or plate mill. A traded market exists for re-rollers without melting capacity — notably in China, India and Southeast Asia — and Indonesia has become a large exporter of 300-series slabs made from domestic nickel. Slab quality issues — inclusions, centre segregation, surface cracking and grade mix-ups — show up as defects in the rolled coil.
The GCC does not melt or roll stainless steel, so slabs are not traded into the region; they are included here for completeness of the product chain from slab to hot-rolled coil and plate.
Forms & sizes
Thickness
Usually 150–250 mm from conventional casters
Width
1000–2000 mm, matched to the hot mill
Length
Cut to the reheating furnace length, typically 5–12 m
Surface
As cast or ground (conditioned) all over
Standards & grades
Slabs are usually bought against a grade composition and the buyer's own quality specification; the standards below set the grade chemistry.
