OOO LZ PMZ (Petrozavodsk Foundry) has manufactured a package for transporting spent nuclear fuel. It is a shell cast in one piece weighing about 160 t. Producing such a heavy ductile iron casting having the required structure of ferrite and high plasticity as-cast (without high-temperature heat treatment) is no easy task.
To achieve the required ferrite structure and mechanical properties, the molten metal used for manufacturing this casting was treated with the nodularizers and inoculants developed and manufactured by OOO NPP Technology, a company in Chelyabinsk. Previously, OOO LZ PMZ used imported materials manufactured by ASK Chemicals.
In terms of technical and engineering specifications including their rate of dissolution, their impact on the molten metal and duration of their modification effect (lasting over 35 minutes), the products manufactured by OOO NPP Technology are no worse than the world's best equivalents surpassing them in terms of costs. (An extract from an article entitled "Production of Ductile Iron Packages Based on Import Substitution", page 9, Foundry Journal, Issue 1, 2018.)