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Metal > Aluminium > Aluminium Products > Aluminum SheetSheet and Plate:When aluminum is passed between rolls under pressure, it becomes thinner, and longer in the direction in which it is moving. This simple process is the basis for aluminum’s most widely used forms: plate, sheet, and foil. Aluminum can be flat-rolled and re-rolled until it reaches the desired thickness or gauge. Where the rolling process is stopped determines whether the final product will be plate (a quarter-inch thick or more), sheet (.249 to .006 inch), or foil (less than .006 inch). The Production Process Rolling begins with huge sheet ingots weighing as much as 20 tons, which have been preheated to make them easier to shape. As the size of rolling mills has increased, so has the size of these ingots, but a typical ingot is about six feet wide, 20 feet long, and more than two feet thick. The ingot is first fed into a breakdown mill where it is rolled back and forth, reversing between the rolls until the thickness has been reduced to just a few inches. At this point, some plate is removed and readied for shipment. The plate is heat-treated and quickly cooled, or quenched, for added strength, and then stretched to straighten and to relieve internal stress built up during rolling and heat-treating. Finally, the plate is trimmed and aged at a desired temperature to develop its final properties. Plate that is slated to become sheet or foil is trimmed after leaving the breakdown mill and sent through a continuous mill to further reduce thickness. Sheet thicknesses are then coiled. To continue its reducing process, the coiled sheet is heated in a furnace to soften it for cold rolling. Cold rolling is the last step for some sheet, but other types, known as heat-treatable, are subjected to further elevated temperature processing, which increases the metal's strength.
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