EFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES includes companies like Promau Davi, renowned for its precision plate-rolling technology, makes cones, cylinders and sheets of metal smooth and perfect enough for NASA’s latest rockets and space vehicles. Their energy-efficient machines do this without wasting lubricant. Moreover, they use that same precision to produce massive, pre-formed wind towers for a Danish company that’s a world leader in wind power. That’s renewable energy – no assembly required. The same Italian company that’s responsible for helping India’s burgeoning space program literally get off the ground, FOMAS, has also brought its unique steelmaking know-how to the turbine and wind rotor industry. They manufactured the parts for a geothermal plant in Tuscany that’s the first of its kind in the world. Outside Italy’s borders, they’ve worked on a solar plant in Spain, and a hydroelectric plant – the biggest in South America – in Brazil. Magaldi took the idea of a conveyor belt with replaceable parts and refined it till it was indestructible – literally. Their belts, designed
TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY
DENVER
Marble Machines Denver’s stone and glass finishing machines represent, as the company puts it, the human side of high-tech. The company recently adopted an eco-friendly policy, and Adolfo Fabbri, the firm’s technical manager, points to the compactness of the firm’s machinery as one aspect of its eco-friendliness. But it’s not only that. Denver’s stone and glass finishing machines also use a monocoque chassis constructed in a single process and have engines that can be used for continuous cycles of work, not just for peaks of power. Their ease of maintenance and extreme reliability means that Denver’s machines use less electricity, water and air than the average. As Fabbri says, “every euro invested in new machinery must equal efficiency, usefulness and profit." Other companies with similar expertise are Ghines and Fraccaroli.
SALVAGNINI Machines Tools
Vicenza’s Salvagnini brought revolution to the sheet metalpunching industry by reducing the time needed to finish product. Now they’re applying that same efficiency to reducing consumption. Their S4X machine uses a hydraulic system that, thanks to an innovative redesign, reduces consumption by more than 30 percent. Component by component, its chiller, which uses green gas, is much smaller, motors have been made more efficient, and digital valves inside its shear unit only activate it when necessary, thus reducing the amount of oil consumed. To boot, Salvagnini now uses only metal panels in both its machines and for its main command console, and they have switched from solvent- to water-based paint, eliminating the organic solvents and colorants that contain heavy metals, greatly reducing the chemical risk to all those who use the product. Equally innovative and efficient in this field are Maus and Galdabini.
87