E-Archive
VOL. 8 March ISSUE YEAR 2007
Interview
in Vol. 8 - March Issue - Year 2007
Shot Peening Services Made In Italy
Michele Bandini, General Manager of Peen Service s.r.l
MFN has known Michele Bandini for many years. He is the General Manager of Peen Service s.r.l. and runs most likely the most sophisticated shot peening job shop in Italy. Michele teaches at the Mechanical Engineering University of Bologna and Milan and has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. MFN took the chance to ask some questions.
(?) MFN: Michele can you briefly tell us about the core business of Peen Service?
(!) M. B.: Today our core business is offering shot peening services for all those companies that need not only a process supplier but a partner or a consultant to help them solve their technical problems.
(?) MFN: Why did you say today? Was Peen Service something different in the past?
(!) M. B.: Yes, the company started in 1975 as manufacturer of sand blasting and shot blasting equipment. The name was Norblast at that time. The company heard about the shot peening process around 1985 for the first time. It was very interesting right from the start, it was so similar to a standard shot blasting to let them underestimate the great difference between shot peening and shot blasting. After a few years spent making trials on "shot peening or something similar" one thing was absolutely clear. They needed to know more, much more! In 1990 I came in to do exactly that, research on shot peening.
(?) MFN: An interesting story! Could you help us to understand better how Peen Service was born?
(!) M. B.: We were a small company, only ten guys and two basic shot peening machines at that time, we couldn’t do a serious research working plan with our own efforts. I decided to set up something like a network to do research on shot peening. I cooperated with the Fiat Research Center, the Mechanical University of Bologna and the Politecnico University of Milan. All of us were really interested in investigating the advantages and the benefits of shot peening on fatigue life. In the first ten years we did twelve research works and our knowledge on shot peening and its application increased day by day. A very nice result for such a small company. In addition the things were at their best, the shot peening business unit had a tremendous increase, the sales passed from two thousand euros to one million euros. We became a company inside a company. In 2000 we decided to split the shot peening business unit. Peen Service was born!
Today we still continue to do a lot of research, either on a large base or on customer’s specific problems. Today our expertise enables us to support our customers in finding the best solution for their technical problems.
(?) MFN: Very exciting. What markets does Peen Service serve?
(!) M. B.: 60% of our total sales are on formula 1 teams and aeronautic industries. The rest is on energy field, industrial market, automotive, earthmoving machines and all those areas where you have fatigue. We could say that we can solve fatigue problems, no matter where they are.
(?) MFN: What do you see in the future for Peen Service?
(!) M. B.: Fatigue is a very complex phenomenon and fatigue tests are very expensive, so the greater part of our research is based on understanding the response of metals to cyclic loads. In our laboratory we have an X-ray difractometer to measure the residual stress. Our big challenge is to understand and predict the fatigue life of the shot peened components.
We at MFN would like to thank Mr. Michele Bandini for this interview.
Peen Service s.r.l.
Via Augusto Pollastri 7
40138 Bologna, Italy
Tel. +39.051533550
Fax +39.051531307
E-mail: m.bandini@peenservice.it
www.peenservice.it