The present invention relates to an apparatus for cooling hot steel plate applied for controlled cooling of hot steel plate, obtained by hot rolling, while processing it constrained by constraining rolls and obtaining a steel material excellent and uniform in shape characteristics and provides a method of arranging and setting spray nozzles enabling uniform cooling in a direction perpendicular to processing and provides a method of arranging and setting spray nozzles of a spray cooling apparatus using two or more types of nozzles differing in amounts of water and spray regions to obtain a broad range of adjustment of amounts of water, wherein the spray nozzles are arranged so that a value of an n power of the impact pressures of the cooling water sprayed from the spray on the cooling surface integrated in the processing direction between pairs of constraining rolls becomes within −20% of the highest value in the direction perpendicular to processing, where, 0.05≦n≦0.2