Securing of steel plates

Stacks of steel plates on roll trailers or flat racks shall be secured with loop lashings to prevent transverse movement and spring lashings to prevent longitudinal movement. The loop lashings shall be applied at several different levels.

1. Example of loop lashings in the transverse direction. 2. Example of spring lashing in the longitudinal direction.

The equipment used should be chain lashings with breaking strength MBL minimum 15 tons and MSL minimum 7.5 tons. Web lashings with similar strength may also be used. If other equipment is used, for example web lashings with MSL 2.5 ton, the number of lashings shall be doubled.

Corner protectors should be used between the lashings and the cargo in order to prevent the edges of the steel plates from being damaged by the chain lashings as well as bending of chain links. Either hard plastic corner protectors or rubber mats can be used.

Chain links may bend over sharp edges. With corner protections this problem is significantly reduced

All lashings shall be placed so that it is possible to retighten them if needed during the voyage. This can mean that two tensioners need to be used on each half loop lashing, one at each end.