Zanardi Academy
“Zanardi Academy” is a web platform conceived and designed to share the culture of the foundry process, and of the materials deriving from it, with entrepreneurs, designers, R&D managers, teachers, students and researchers who work in the ductile iron industry or are passionate about it.
The platform hosts contents of scientific and informative interest that Zanardi Fonderie, a specialist in the foundry sector for over 90 years, has created in collaboration with the DTG (Department of Technical and Management of Industrial Systems) of the University of Padua. The aim of “Zanardi Academy” is to disseminate information on foundry work and cast iron, in particular on grey cast iron, ductile iron and austempered ductile iron, to share them with all people interested in this constantly evolving sector.
The foundry and cast iron: an evolving story
The fusion of cast iron has ancient origins: the birth of foundries dates back to 4000 BC and if the first artefacts found are considered to have been made for artistic purposes, in the Middle Ages the development of the foundry process extends to the construction of churches, cathedrals and bronze bells.
Quality control systems
Checking the quality of a ductile iron casting means verifying, through different systems of analysis, controls and tests, that the minimum requirements concerning composition, microstructure, absence of defects, mechanical and technological characteristics of the material are achieved
What is Austempering treatment used for?
The austempering heat treatment is applicable to ferrous alloys where the material, following the austenitization phase, is quenched in a bath of molten salts that make it possible to obtain austempered materials such as austempered ductile iron (ADI) and isothermal ductile iron (IDI)
Main characteristics of ADI and IDI ductile irons
ADI austempered ductile irons and IDI isothermal ductile irons, materials obtained thanks to heat treatments with hardening in a molten salt bath, have superior mechanical characteristics compared to as-cast ductile irons such as to make them comparable even with hardened and tempered construction steels
Zanardi Academy project partner
