Tata Steel announced on Feb. 25, 2020 the availability of a new high-strength, abrasion-resistant steel in North America in partnership with Steel Warehouse.
Ideally suited for use on heavy equipment used in the mining, agriculture, construction, refuse and recycling industries, Tata's new hot-rolled Valast 450 offers vehicle manufacturers a variety of advantages compared to conventional abrasion-resistant plate-steel products.
Gordon AuBuchon, Steel Warehouse's executive vice president for product development, pointed out that Valast rolled-steel will be offered in lighter gauges and tighter tolerances than plate, allowing for lightweighting and cost savings.
A low-alloy steel suitable for welding, Valast also will be available in widths of up to 81 inches, nearly 30 percent more than the maximum of 60 inches offered by many of Tata's strip-steel competitors. Steel Warehouse also plans to introduce autogeneous laser welding at its production facilities to provide Valast in custom widths and lengths not available anywhere else in the world.
"Valast provides our customers with an opportunity to reduce waste and improve efficiency," noted Glyn Martin, a technical support engineer at Tata Steel. "Because it's a strip-steel product, Valast can be cut to any length needed with the added benefit of having the greatest width available in the industry."
Hot-rolled at Tata Steel's recently expanded IJmuiden production facilities in the Netherlands, Valast is especially suited for applications where strength and hardness are required. Dump and refuse trucks, mining and highway-construction vehicles, backhoes and other earth-moving equipment, for example, all rely on abrasion-resistant steel or components heat-treated for abrasion resistance.
In the United States, Steel Warehouse has facilities in Calvert, Ala.; Osceola, Ark.; Rock Island, Ill.; Portage and South Bend, Ind.; Cleveland, Ohio; Chattanooga and Memphis, Tenn.; Houston, Texas, and Milwaukee, Wis. The company also has facilities in Monterrey, Mexico, and Paulinia, Brazil.
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