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Best of the month: FEBRUARY 2012Application reference: Roll BendingMachine Walter Tosto S.p.A.The ApplicationIn recent years, the growing demand for oil, principally by BRIC countries,has caused oil prices to increase notably: consequently investment in new oilrefinery construction has grown significantly.The lifetime and performance of refineries depend upon the characteristicsof so-called “critical items”, i.e. large cylindrical metal containers (tanks, reactors,refinery columns, heat exchangers, water towers, tanks for gas ships,etc.) manufactured using thick metal sheet which must withstand the highpressures of the fluid within the containers themselves.Generally these containers are made using special steel alloys containingchrome, molybdenum and vanadium. Few companies are able to weld andmachine such alloys.WALTER TOSTO SpA, with its 450 employees, operates within this scenario,achieving an annual turnover of 100 M€ (85% of which is exported to theUSA, Russia and China). WALTER TOSTO SpA was founded in 1960, and since1982 it has been operating in the field of processing plants for pressuredfluids.WALTER TOSTO SpA has grown to become a world leader in the manufacturingof very large vessels (max manufactured weight =1050 t, max length=105 m) covering applications which include Oil & Gas, Petrochemical, PowerGeneration, Food and Pharmaceuticals.Larger still are the reactors (containers in which a product is chemicallytransformed by heat and exits as a different substance), whose cylindricalshape must be created by forming very thick metal sheet.WALTER TOSTO SpA was previously obliged to purchase the metal sheetalready pre-shaped by the steelworks themselves. But this presented therisk that, if the demand for tanks were to increase in terms of quantity (over14000 t/year), dimensions and thickness, it would have been difficult to findsuppliers able to bend such very thick plates.WALTER TOSTO SpA thus decided to invest 9.5M€ in the design and manufactureof the biggest roll bending machine in the world today: BaptisedDINO 10 000 it is the result of the know-how and technical expertise WAL-TER TOSTO SpA has accumulated during its many years in the business.The Application NeedsOvercoming such an immense challenge allows WALTER TOSTO SpA to placeitself at the very top level amongst the world manufacturing élite, with theaim of becoming the number one producer of pressure vessels worldwide.To achieve this WALTER TOSTO SpA was forced to minimize the outsourcedcontent, entirely developing the machine internally with the support ofonly a few key suppliers.The result is an engineering masterpiece which weighs 1200 t, with an installedpower of 1200 kW, a hydraulic circuit containing 1900 l of oil, abasement at 9 m underground and a height of 12.5 m.DINO 10 000 can bend plates of more than 400 mm thickness by meansof a compression force of 98.100 N between its rollers (corresponding to aweight of 10.000 t), and can deliver a torque of 12.8 MNm generated by oilat a pressure of 250 bar; in this manner it bends metals through the combinedaction of rotation and compression.DINO 10 000 is installed in one of WALTER TOSTO SpA’s 6 facilities, in the