Scarborough-based Unison Ltd (www.unisonltd.com) has installed what it believes is the largest all-electric tube-bending machine ever produced.

This machine, which is being used by Newport News Shipbuilding (a supplier of nuclear-powered submarines to the US Navy), can generate a torque of 360,000Nm — sufficient to bend pipe with an outside diameter of 219.1mm and a wall thickness of 12.7mm.

The availability of all-electric servo-controlled bending machines for pipes of this size brings significant productivity benefits to the fabrication of a ship’s pipework compared with hydraulically powered machinery.

These benefits include software-controlled set-up and right-first-time precision bending, along with high levels of accuracy and repeatability. Bend accuracy is aided by the use of a laser-based system that measures and adjusts bend angles for spring-back.

Newport News Shipbuilding has more than seven years’ experience of Unison all-electric tube benders, having installed three of the company’s machines in 2007.