Article for Global Casting Magazine by Foundry Planet

In a strip of land in Northern Italy between the north-eastern border of the Po Valley and the Lombard foothills of the Alps there is Brescia, the capital of the eponymous Lombard province that economists consider to be one of Europe’s most productive.

At number 4 of Cacciamali street, on the right side of the motorway from Milan to Venice, you can find Savelli S.p.A., whose premises extend over 35 thousand square metres, 18 thousand of which are indoors.
Savelli (official 2011 turnover of €59ML, $79ML) is a family owned industrial group (171 years old) which originates from the handicraft activity carried out by Egidio Savelli, a blacksmith, who in 1842 established an iron working workshop in this area.
Savelli S.p.A. is part of AMAFOND (Italian Foundry Suppliers’ Association, 90 associated companies) and Francesco Savelli is its President.

Savelli company operates in two different industrial sectors that nevertheless act in close synergy: ‘foundry technologies’ and ‘heavy metalwork construction’. Owing to this diversification, Savelli is organized into two divisions: Heavy metalwork construction and Foundries.
The Heavy Metalwork Construction Division accounts for 20% of turnover and manufactures electrically welded metal constructions that can weigh up to 400 tonnes. The division can design structures for machine tools (boring machines, milling units, gear cutters, grinders and lathes), for casting machines in the car industry and forging presses. The Brescia facility also carries out normalizing treatment, sand blasting and painting.

The Foundry Technologies Division is Savelli’s core business. This division deals with the design, production and maintenance of foundry equipment. Savelli plants are among the world’s finest and the technological solutions adopted have enabled the Savelli systems to fly in the upper spheres of the world’s foundry plant manufacturers.
The Brescia company also works in the Sector of Heating Radiators, designing and manufacturing transfer lines and automatic machines for assembling and processing cast-iron and aluminium heating radiators; high-performance lines that process about to 800 pieces an hour.

150 people work at the company, many of whom are highly specialized. In the engineering department there are engineers, computer programmers and designers who design plants that are able to meet all customer needs. Customization is in fact a factor that distinguishes Savelli from its competitors. Unlike the latter, who concentrate on making standardized products, the Brescia company specializes in ‘bespoke’ products, i.e. on systems ‘tailored’ to suit the customer.

Savelli sells its products in about thirty countries to 240 companies, including Brembo (Italy), Renault (France), Altajvagon (Russia), Randon (Brazil), Hyundai (South Korea), Buderus Kanalguss and Weso (Germany) and John Deere (USA). In Brazil the Brescia company has its own facility, Savelli do Brasil, which supplies the entire Latin American market.
The foundry equipment manufactured by Savelli is able to produce parts for many different market segments: automotive, agriculture, building, aeronautics, ship building and railways.

The fast growing of Savelli and its large success is due to the fact that Savelli S.p.A. has a long-lasting experience in designing and commissioning complete “Green Sand” Foundries.
This because Savelli deliver complete sand preparation plants, complete horizontal flask moulding lines and shakeout and castings’ cooling systems.

For this purpose Savelli has aligned itself with successful companies to provide complete solution packages to its clients as General Kinematics Corp. that is the premier manufacturer of vibrating equipment for the processing of bulk materials, as EnginSoft that is the result of a combination between competencies and initiatives in the fields of CAE (Computer Aided Engineering), virtual prototyping, process simulation and, more generally, of scientific informatics applied to the optimization of design and manufacturing processes, as Thermomelt srl that is specialized in design, manufacturing and supplying “turnkey” EAF-EBT electric Arc Furnaces and Evolut that is one of the most important integrators of robotized systems for General Industry.

Savelli has its own internal Automation and Service departments that are strictly connected to the Engineering department, to establish a close cooperation, in order to find the best solution for the customer, according to their experiences.
Moulding lines and sand reclamation and preparation plants are completely electronically controlled.
The electronic and automation department manages all the problems and issues related to projects concerning Savelli plants and machines and it can offer complete software and hardware projects, realization of operator-machine interface systems (moulding line supervision PC), final testing and commissioning, operator training and customer service.

Regarding its own produced equipment, Savelli can offer machines (sand mixers, sand coolers, polygonal screens etc..) or complete sand reclamation, preparation and distribution plants (over 600 tons/hr) and horizontal flask moulding machines and complete lines with 3 different mould compaction processes: High Pressure Squeezing, Formimpress® (high pressure double squeezing) and AeroFlux (pre compaction by air).

The 3 main peculiarities that make Savelli molding line successful and convinced important customers as John Deere and Renault are:

• the moulding system Formimpress® (high pressure double squeezing) that permits the best mould’s quality and the best sand/metal ratio;

• the new generation mould transport systems with El-Mecs (electro-mechanical devices) instead of the traditional hydraulic cylinders that guarantee an important energy saving, lower maintenance and higher efficiency;

• and the flaskless cooling houses with electro-welded cooling boxes instead of heavy in flask cooling lines that reduces a lot the initial investment and guarantee a high energy saving.

For these new generation technologies Savelli was able to realize the largest moulding lines today installed in the world, capable to reach the highest performances:

Renault (Le Mans, France), F1 moulding line, 1300x1100x250/200mm for the production of brake disks and drums at the speed of 250 complete moulds/hour.
JSC Altajvagon (Barnaul, Russia), F1 moulding line, 3000x1800x500/500mm for the production of rail steel castings and boogies for rail wagons at the rate of 10 complete moulds/hr.
Deere & Company (Waterloo, USA), F1 moulding line, 1830x1425x560/560mm for the production of agricultural castings for tractors at the rate of 120 complete mph; 2 hours in flask cooling + 8 hours in cooling jackets; sand System for 610 tons/h.

It is true if we say that Savelli likes to speak with facts!

These moulds are compacted by Savelli Formimpress without the auxiliary of cores!