The German company Schwarze-Robitec GmbH (www.schwarze-robitec.com) has delivered two of its booster bending machines to the Vietnamese company Martech Boiler Co Ltd; the latter will use the CNC 100 DB for the mandrel-free bending of thick-walled boiler tubes, and the FL 2000 for processing welded boiler walls.

These machines are part of Schwarze-Robitec’s Boiler & Power series.

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Martech specialises in the production of boilers and pressure vessels for the energy industry. For years, it has been using a CNC 80 DB from Schwarze-Robitec to bend tubes up to 88.9mm in diameter.

With its new CNC 100 DB, the company can bend — without a mandrel — tubes up to 114.3mm in diameter and with a wall thickness of 8mm. Moreover, the tube boost and integrated tube clamp allows the mandrel-free cold bending of very small radii — just 1 x D — with a minimal reduction of wall thickness and optimum ovality.

Modern power plant construction would not be possible without finned walls consisting of multiple tubes welded together to form what are termed ‘membrane tube walls’.

To bend the tubing required, Martech uses the FL 2000, which can process entire bending membrane walls with a through-width of up to 2,000mm in a single operation.

The diameter of the tubes can be up to 70mm and the wall thickness up to 5mm. In addition, there is increasing demand for diagonal bending, which the FL 2000 can also undertake.