Alloy Steel Plate
Trinity Products carries an extensive inventory of alloy steel plate. Alloying elements improve properties like strength, hardness, toughness and wear resistance.
Alloying elements can be added to steel by adjusting its iron and carbon content. They can also improve machinability and corrosion resistance. Other mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation vary with thickness.
Structural Alloy Steel
Structural steel plate is a type of hot-rolled steel that is used for making construction materials and structures. Kloeckner Metals stocks structural alloy steel in addition to angles, beams, channels and more, across our 40+ facilities nationwide.
The main process of manufacturing alloy steel plates involves melting iron or steel ingots. The liquid metal is then cast in continuous casting machines into steel slabs, or in ingot molds for some special grades of plate. The slabs are then rolled down to a desired thickness for use in various applications. These include welded construction in bridges and buildings, and military armoring of vehicles and equipment.
One key consideration with steel plate is that its alloy steel plate static tensile properties are directly related to the overall thickness of the material. However, the mechanical properties of the plate can also be affected by surface conditions. This can be caused by blow holes and cracks, decarburization, and other surface imperfections.
Other factors that can affect the plate’s performance include its alloying, carbon content and chemistry, and heat treatment. The plate may be hot rolled or cold rolled, and it can be coated with zinc, aluminum or other coatings to improve its corrosion resistance. It can also be fabricated in various ways, including through welding or cutting. The fabrication process can require precision to ensure the correct size and shape.
Abrasion Resistant Steel
Abrasion resistant steel plate is alloyed with a variety of elements to produce a hard, tough material that resists damage caused by repetitive impacts. These alloys include manganese and chromium for hardenability, silicon for solid solution strengthening, and other micro-alloying elements like titanium and vanadium to refine the austenite grain structure during hot rolling. The result is a martensitic structure that’s stronger and more ductile than normal abrasion resistance grades.
Unlike other steels that are typically classified based on tensile strength, these types of abrasion resistant steels are generally designated by their Brinell hardness rating. This is primarily because this measure helps to differentiate abrasion resistant steels from other hardness-based grades.
While hardness is the primary factor, heat treatment is also important in abrasion resistant steels. This process involves rapid heating and quenching, which results in the formation of microstructures such as martensite and bainite that help to improve abrasion resistance.
This process can be modified, however, to make the steel more formable. For example, formable abrasion resistant steel is tempered after quenching to reduce some of its hardness and encourage flexibility. Abrasion resistant steels can be a bit harder to re-work than other grades due to this additional tempering step, and they tend to cost more than standard abrasion resistance steels.
High-Carbon Steel
There are a number of uses for high-carbon steel, including the crafting of precision tools and abrasion-resistant materials. These alloys are forged from carbon (which never goes above 2.0 percent) and other metals like manganese, nickel, chromium, molybdenum and vanadium to enhance their hardness, strength, durability and machinability ratings.
Typically, carbon is added to iron during the smelting process, which turns it into liquid iron at around 1400C or so. The amount of carbon in this iron is what distinguishes different grades of carbon steel.
Medium carbon steels contain 0.30 to 0.60% carbon while high and ultra-high carbon steels feature a carbon content of up to 2.0%. These alloys are commonly referred to as tool steels due to their galvanized steel manufacturer superior hardness, wear resistance and toughness. They are also used to produce cutting tools, such as drills and saw blades, that require exceptional sharpness that holds up over time.
These types of steels are often used in the automotive industry for car components such as frames, chassis and support beams. They are also used to produce abrasion-resistant materials and for spring materials, such as door hinges. In order to improve their physical properties, these alloys are typically mixed with other metals like chromium, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum and vanadium. They are typically classified by their four digits AISI or ASTM designation.
Low-Alloy Steel
Many alloy steel plate applications call for both high strength and resistance to corrosion or abrasion. These situations usually involve a combination of environmental hazards, heavy loads and equipment, and difficult mechanical operations that require good formability and weldability.
The low-alloy steel plate category contains a number of grades that can meet the requirements for these applications, and it can be divided into several categories depending on the specific alloying elements used. Copper, chromium, nickel, molybdenum and vanadium can be used to boost strength, while silicon, manganese, tungsten and niobium can be added for corrosion resistance or toughness.
The lowest carbon content in these alloys is normally less than 0.25 %, and the total amount of other alloying elements can be less than six %. These steels are sometimes called construction alloy steels and they typically have low tensile strengths, but good formability, weldability and fatigue resistance. These features make them popular for truck frames, crane booms and railroad car components. They also work well in the oil and gas industry, where they are used to fabricate pipelines and other equipment that must withstand extreme pressures and abrasion. Despite these advantages, low-alloy steels require more care than other types of alloy steels during the production process. This is because they are more sensitive to thermal and mechanical operations, and because the varying effects of different chemical compositions can produce different responses in the final product.
