Coils: general information
(Steel) coils are rolls of steel sheet, which are primarily classed as either hot-rolled strip or cold-rolled strip. Slit strip coils with a shorter winding axis are produced from wide strip in special slitting plants; slit strip coils may be transported individually or consolidated into bundles. Slit strip coils are often supplied on wooden sleds or skids with the winding axis vertical. Other coils may, however, also be supplied for shipment fastened onto skids with the winding axis vertical or horizontal. Coil remnants are lower grade goods and are often only loosely wound.
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Hot-rolled strip, only bundled |
Hot-rolled strip is almost always shipped unpackaged, only being held together with a variable number of steel straps. While attention must be paid to protecting such goods from damage also with regard to cargo securing measures, the risks are not so great for hot-rolled sheet. Edge protection, for example, is not so important. The situation is quite different with cold-rolled sheet, which has almost always been pretreated and is very sensitive. Transport risk varies as a function of the mode and route of transport and such products are often provided with different grades of packaging as a consequence.
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Cold-rolled sheet in packaging of special paper, hardboard and folded sheet metal edge protectors |
Special container for coil transport
Shipowners will always tend to prefer to carry containers which are as versatile as possible. From the standpoint of cargo securing, i.e. disregarding climatic and chemical transport risks, coils are best shipped on coil containers. These are flatracks which have special troughs for coils and, in some cases, also additional cargo securing equipment.
In conventional coil containers, the coils are carried with the winding axis lying crosswise. So that these containers do not have to be used solely for carrying steel coils, the troughs can, or could, have covers making it feasible to a limited extent also to carry other goods on these flatracks.