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A state-of-the-art tube bending machine is giving BAE Systems Submarine Solutions (Barrow-in-Furness, UK) greater flexibility to fabricate complex part shapes required to build the UK's Astute class nuclear-powered submarines.
Supplied by Unison (Scarborough, UK), the all-electric tube bender features both right and left handed bending capability. This allows long and complicated tubular part shapes to be produced very rapidly and in a single stage. For BAE Systems, this is a critical advantage as the boat building process must run to plan and many parts are produced to demand to satisfy the production schedule.
In some cases, such as when fabricating tubular shapes of several meters in length, the new machine also allows BAE Systems to make parts from a single length of tubing, avoiding any need to join tube sections. In addition to production speed advantages, this new capability also eliminates time-consuming and expensive X-ray and crack-detection testing stages that would otherwise be required to verify the integrity of welded joints for this high-reliability equipment.
The new 20 mm machine was purchased to increase the production capacity and flexibility of the pipe shop at the company's Barrow-in-Furness shipyard. It joins a number of hydraulic tube bending machines. As well as being the first right and left handed machine, the new equipment is also the shipbuilder's first 'all-electric' tube bender with position control achieved via servomotor-based movement axes.
A NEW GENERATION OF SUBMARINE
The Astute Class submarine is a next-generation nuclear-powered submarine that will be the largest and most able attack submarine that the Royal Navy has operated, with a performance to rival any in the world. The 1998 Strategic Defense Review reaffirmed the UK's need for submarines - but with increasingly flexible capabilities.
Astute's role as an undersea hunter-killer relies on her being stealthier than her underwater environment. Astute will undertake a range of tasks including intelligence gathering, support for land forces and anti-submarine warfare.
Designed to operate in isolation or as part of a joint military task force with other naval vessels, aircraft and land forces, Astute's challenge is to remain undetected, thousands of miles from home and hundreds of meters underwater while still being able to communicate securely and effectively with allied forces via satellite. Astute has greater weapons capability, improved communications facilities and enhanced capability to operate in the littoral in comparison with the existing Swiftsure and Trafalgar (S&T) Class in service at present.
A powerful threat to enemy ships and submarines, Astute also has formidable firepower against land targets. Armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles she can strike at targets up to 1,000 km from the coast with pin-point accuracy.
Fabricating highly complex tubular shapes is an everyday task for the pipe shop. In order to fit in all of the submarine's equipment, and maximize the free space available, small-bore piping and tubing services such as hydraulic lines are often shaped to fit into the free spaces available adjacent to panels and bulkheads. Consequently, tubular parts are often fabricated in batch sizes of just one.