FFFF
FFFF
FFFF
September 2012
Thickness Definitions
There are a number of terms used for sheet steel products that need to be explained because they will affect the thickness
of product that could be delivered to the job site.
Nominal Thickness: When sheet steel is produced by the steel companies it is manufactured to a target or “nominal”
thickness. As with all manufacturing processes, variations in the final thickness of the sheet are unavoidable. However, the
thickness is controlled very tightly to ensure that it does not fall below the minimum thickness (as described below).
Base Steel Thickness: The thickness of the sheet steel material without any coatings.
Coated Thickness: The thickness of the steel sheet including any metallic coatings (i.e. zinc or aluminum-zinc alloy) and
paint coatings.
Design Thickness: The design thickness is the thickness of the base steel only, and is used by the engineer to determine
the structural properties of the cold formed product. This is the thickness that a manufacturer will list in their product
catalogues and load tables.
Minimum Thickness: The minimum thickness of structural sheet steel building products delivered to the job site will be
the design thickness minus the maximum allowable under-tolerance specified by the CSA-S136 Standard or the material
specification, whichever is the more restrictive. The minimum thickness allowed by the CSA-S136 Standard is 95% of
the design thickness.
Gauge Number And Decimal Thickness
Table 1 shows the relationship between the MSG numbers, the nominal or design thickness, and the minimum thickness
based on the CSA-S136 Standard.
652 Bishop St. N., Unit 2A, Cambridge, Ontario N3H 4V6 • Tel.: (519) 650-1285 • Fax: (519) 650-8081 • www.cssbi.ca
Table 2: Minimum Metallic Coating Thicknesses
Coating Coating Coating Coating Coating
Designation Designation Mass(1) Thickness(3) Thickness(3)
(Imperial) (Metric) (g/m2) (in) (mm)
A01 ZF001 No minimum(2) No minimum(2) No minimum(2)
A25 ZF75 75 0.0004 0.011
G01 Z001 No minimum (2)
No minimum (2)
No minimum(2)
G40 Z120 120 0.0007 0.017
G60 Z180 180 0.0010 0.025
G90 Z275 275 0.0015 0.039
AZ50 AZM150 150 0.0016 0.040
AZ55 AZM165 165 0.0017 0.044
AZ60 AZM180 180 0.0019 0.048
(1) Coating mass is based on the minimum average coating weight total both sides based on the triple spot test as specified in
ASTM A653/A653M and A792/A792M.
(2) “No minimum” means that there are no established minimum requirements for this coating designation based on the triple
spot test.
(3) The coating thickness is calculated from the minimum coating mass based on the following conversion factors:
Zinc (ASTM A653/A653M) 1 micron = 7.14 g/m2
55% AL-ZN (ASTM A792/A792M) 1 micron = 3.75 g/m2
A significant amount of sheet steel is also prefinished with a paint system on top of the metallic coating. The thickness
of these paint/primer layers must also be included when measuring the thickness of the sheet. The thicknesses of typical
paint coatings vary from 0.0003 to 0.001 in. (0.008 to 0.025 mm) per side. Some thick film paint systems (e.g. Barrier
Series) have thicknesses of 0.004 to 0.012 in. (0.100 to 0.300 mm). Listed in Table 3 are the thicknesses of common
prefinished paint systems used in Canada.
652 Bishop St. N., Unit 2A, Cambridge, Ontario N3H 4V6 • Tel.: (519) 650-1285 • Fax: (519) 650-8081 • www.cssbi.ca
Table 4: Minimum Thickness for Prefinished(1) Sheet
Minimum Base Steel Thickness Minimum Coated Steel
Gauge Number (95% of Design Thickness) Thickness (2)
inches mm inches mm
20 0.0341 0.866 0.0369 0.938
22 0.0284 0.721 0.0312 0.793
24 0.0227 0.577 0.0255 0.649
26 0.0170 0.432 0.0198 0.504
28 0.0142 0.359 0.0170 0.431
29 0.0128 0.326 0.0156 0.398
30 0.0114 0.290 0.0142 0.362
(1) The sheet has a G90 (Z275) zinc coating (0.0015 in./0.039 mm), a Perspectra Series paint coating on the finish side (0.001
in./0.025 mm) and a wash coat on the reverse side (0.0003 in./0.008 mm).
(2) Nominal paint thicknesses were used to calculate the overall minimum coated steel thicknesses.
Conclusion
An important thing to remember about gauge numbers is that they do not refer to only one thickness but instead
represent a range of thicknesses within the allowable tolerances, or to different thicknesses for different products. Gauge
numbers are not regulated and are generally used for convenience in sales literature. Decimal thickness is required for
structural design and material ordering. The steel industry encourages everyone to use decimal thicknesses in specifying
sheet steel products and avoid the potential problems inherent with gauges.
652 Bishop St. N., Unit 2A, Cambridge, Ontario N3H 4V6 • Tel.: (519) 650-1285 • Fax: (519) 650-8081 • www.cssbi.ca