Aluminum is the most widely used metal in the world after steel. When alloyed with one or more of a variety of other metals, it becomes a lightweight, strong and durable metal suitable for a wide range of products across numerous industries.
Aluminum comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, including rod, tubing, sheet and plate.
Aluminum Plate
The only difference between aluminum plate and sheet is their thickness. Aluminum that ranges in thickness from 0.008 inches to less than 0.25 inches is considered sheet. Anything thicker than this is plate, and anything thinner is foil.
Aluminum plate (and sheet) can be recycled continuously without losing any of its properties, or weakening in any way. Recycled aluminum is indistinguishable from primary aluminum, but requires only 10% of the energy to produce.
Military grade aluminum armor plate is highly valued for its impressive performance standards. It can, for example, deflect a .50 caliber round that would pierce other metals.
How It’s Made
Preheated ingots of aluminum (typically about six feet wide, 20 feet long and more than two feet thick) are passed between rollers under pressure. The ingots become thinner and longer in the direction in which they are moving.
They may be heat-treated to increase their strength, but generally, aluminum plate is at its strongest when it is at its coldest, which is why it is often used for storage tanks. However, it does also perform exceptionally well under extremely high temperatures, and is commonly found around the engine of commercial and military aircraft, where temperatures of up to 250°F (121°C) are frequent.
2024 Aluminium Plate
2024 aluminum is one of the most popular alloys in production today. It has copper as its main alloying element, and offers several desirable properties, including:
- Good resistance to pressure
- High strength-to-weight ratio
- Good weldability, but only through friction welding
Like all alloys in the 2000 series, 2024 aluminum is vulnerable to atmospheric corrosion, especially if being used in an industrial or coastal environment. Cladding these alloys is a highly effective way of solvng this problem, making the surface resistant to corrosion, while adding extra cathodic protection.
