Quenched and Tempered (Q&T) plates are high hardness and high strength plates that undergo a specialised heat treatment process involving heating the steel to a temperature as high as 1000?C followed by accelerated cooling to harden the steel. Quenching produces a combination of martensite and bainite in the steel’s microstructure, thus increasing its hardness but also raising its brittleness. Therefore, the steel is then re-heated to a lower temperature to reduce brittleness and improve toughness – this process is called tempering. Q&T steel has high hardness, high strength and good ductility, making it suitable for a variety of high-stress applications, such as construction equipment, mining machinery, crushing/grinding, lifting and defence.