Safran Landing Systems has taken delivery of two all-electric Breeze CNC tube bending machines from Unison. The machines will be used to precision bend thin-wall section titanium tubes for the manufacture of 9.53 mm to 19 mm diameter hydraulic brake and actuator pipes for commercial aircraft undercarriage systems, including those used on Airbus A320, A330 and A340 models.

Safran says the Breeze 16 mm and 30 mm tube bending machines are well suited to manipulating exotic alloys such as titanium and Inconel, as used in the aviation industry, and provide high-quality thin-wall bending. Unison says its standard-fit rise and fall pressure die can result in significant savings in tooling costs and allows tools of very different radii to be used on a part within a cycle. Each tube bender can be programmed manually or from CAD data using industry-standard IGES or STEP files.

“Realising it was time to renew our tube bending capabilities, as part of our ongoing risk analysis activities, necessitated by significantly increased manufacturing requirements, we approached a number of tube bending machinery manufacturers to discuss the various options available to us,” says Safran assembly flow line manager, Jonathan Crewe. “Absolute non-negotiables were uncompromising repeatability and reliability, as well as the ability to produce right-first-time parts.”

To enable the Safran team to experience the capabilities of its all-electric range of Breeze tube bending machines, Unison arranged for them to visit an existing customer's facility at Farnborough and observe titanium tubes being bent. On the strength of the visit and the testimony provided by that customer the order was placed, and master pipe samples were supplied to Unison in readiness for machine setup and sign off.

“We benefited from excellent support and advice at every stage of the process,” adds Crewe. “We were particularly impressed by the effort Unison put into training, ensuring that our operators were fully familiar with the Unibend operating system and could confidently bend thin-wall titanium components, all with precisely controlled levels of spring-back to compensate for the material's high yield strength. We have produced right-first-time components since day one with our new Unison Breeze machines, which our operators rate highly.”