High Performance Steel Plates for Shipbuilding Applications

A demand for heavy thick plates with a good combination of high strength, toughness, and weldability has been widely growing in recent years for large container ship building. The successful application of thermo-mechanical control process (TMCP) with the recent innovative technology has induced the development of EH36, EH40, and EH47 grade steel plates. The alloying elements such as boron, copper, and nickel were added and the rolling and cooling processes were strongly and precisely controlled to improve the strength and toughness at the same time. EH36 steel plate for high heat input welding was successfully developed with good toughness at the HAZ by increasing thermal stability of TIN particles at the high temperature.