Unison has won an order from BAE Systems Surface Ships for a large tube-bending machine to support ongoing projects, including the construction of the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers. Capable of handling tube and pipe diameters up to 175 mm (~7 inches), the machine is expected to be the largest all-electric tube-bender ever built.
Aircraft carriers require hundreds of kilometres of tubing and piping for on-board services, and this new bending machine will enable BAE Systems to fabricate the shaped tube parts required. The performance and flexibility of the all-electric, servomotor-powered bending technology pioneered by Unison is ideal for the highly customised shipbuilding production environment, where many component parts are fabricated in very small batches - and often in quantities of just one.
"The sheer scale of engineering operations required to build an aircraft carrier is breathtaking, and to have our machinery selected to help with the task is a tremendous accolade", said Unison's managing director Alan Pickering: "We are very proud to be associated with what will undoubtedly be, for many years, the UK's largest naval engineering project."
BAE Systems chose Unison as its tube bending automation supplier because of the cost savings potential of an all-electric machine architecture. Unison was the first to build a servomotor-based bending machine, and the closed-loop precision of this form of motion control means that setting-up the machine for new bending tasks is achieved by software, and may be recalled on demand for repeat operations. BAE Systems' machine will also incorporate a laser measurement module, to measure the accuracy of bend angles dynamically and automatically compensate for any errors. This advanced technique overcomes the common problem of having to scrap material because of variations in the 'springback' characteristics between different batches of materials.
Together, these technical advantages will allow BAE Systems to improve capability, capacity and efficiency.
Energy saving was a further significant factor in securing the order. Unison's machines only consume a significant amount of energy when they are actually performing a bend - whereas a conventional hydraulically powered bender typically consumes energy continuously, in order to maintain the system's hydraulic fluid at high pressure.
Unison has a significant track record in the naval shipbuilding market segment: the company's clients include BAE Systems' submarine solutions division - builder of the UK's Astute-class submarines - and the USA aircraft carrier supplier Northrop Grumman Newport News.
This will be the second 175 mm diameter all-electric tube bending machine that Unison has manufactured. BAE Systems' bending machine will be built at Unison's factory in Scarborough, UK. It will be delivered at the end of the first quarter of 2010 to the BAE Systems facility in Scotstoun, Glasgow.
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