Finland’s first national bioeconomy strategy has been unveiled. Finland’s first national bioeconomy strategy is a step towards a more sustainable economy and the attainment of a low-carbon society. The forest industry plays a central role in the bioeconomy, as the industry’s entire operations are based on products manufactured from renewable and recyclable natural resources.

“The bioeconomy is an excellent opportunity for Finland to increase economic growth and wellbeing. Realising the national bioeconomy strategy demands not only bold political decisions but also a strong common intent and concrete actions. Recently made billion-euro investment decisions indicate that the sector has a strong desire to revamp itself, to grow, and to strengthen its position in the bioeconomy market,” says Timo Jaatinen, Director General of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation.

The bioeconomy generates new business and jobs sorely needed in Finland, both in the forest industry as well as across industries. The development of Finland’s bioeconomy, and the ecosystem being built around it, however, requires that the existing forest industry is competitive, and that the business and investment environment supports the growth of the bioeconomy. The bioeconomy of the future will be built on existing processing and partly alongside it.

“Decision makers must actively promote the implementation of the bioeconomy in Finland and the EU, in order to create favourable operating conditions for the bioeconomy. Only a successful and competitive industry can finance the development of new business. Industry and new investments are attracted to places where cost competitiveness is in order and the operating environment is stable and predictable,” says Jaatinen.

From the perspective of raw materials, Finland has excellent pre-requisites for growth, as our bioeconomy is based on forests. Finland must invest in forest management, the availability of wood raw material and in more versatile utilisation of wood biomass. The economic use of forests must be increased, as this would also result in environmental benefits.

Use of renewable raw materials must be increased in production and consumption

Bioeconomy products share the fact that they can be recycled and reused, factors that increasingly direct also consumer choices and that, for their part, determine the success of the bioeconomy. In our efforts to achieve a low-carbon society, the forest industry’s products, based on a renewable raw material, help prevent climate change.

The forest industry already develops and manufactures new, entirely bio-based products that, according to the bioeconomy strategy, are expected to contribute half of the sector’s export income by 2030. The new products complement the growing necessity for packaging and hygiene products as well as wood construction. Furthermore, new successful sectors are emerging from microfibrillated pulp, bio-plastics, composite materials, green chemicals and pharmaceutical industry raw materials as well as biofuels.

Just under 30% of Finland’s energy use is renewable energy and its share, too, can be increased through the sustainable use of forests. The forest industry already produces about 70% of Finland’s renewable energy.

The Finnish Forest Industries Federation is the lobbying organisation for forest industry companies in Finland. It promotes the forest industry’s competitiveness and profitability by strengthening the industry’s operating conditions and positive image both in Finland and abroad. The Finnish Forest Industries Federation’s members are manufacturers of pulp, paper and paperboard. Our members from the wood products industry include most sawmill and board companies as well as further processors of wood.

The forest industry employs almost 160,000 Finns directly and indirectly. The forest industry offers revenue and vitality to rural areas also, and it accounts for a fifth of Finland’s export income.
www.forestindustries.fi

For further information please contact:
Timo Jaatinen, Director General, Finnish Forest Industries Federation, tel. +358 (0) 9 132 6600

Fine Tubes (www.finetubes.com), a leading global supplier of precision tube products, can announce its additional NORSOK approval, enabling the company to supply UNS S31254 seamless tubes across a comprehensive range of tube dimensions.

• Fine Tubes has received additional NORSOK approval to supply UNS S31254 seamless tubes as endorsed by Parker Hannifin and Statoil.
• The company has also achieved a place on the Statoil TR2000 approved supplier list.

Chris Burridge, Customer Quality Engineer for Fine Tubes, commented: "The approval process allowed us to take a closer look at our manufacturing activities for this particular product line and refine them to meet with the requirements of NORSOK M-650.”

Fine Tubes secured this additional approval by aligning its manufacturing process with NORSOK M-650 requirements, and providing compliance through an audit undertaken by Parker Hannifin and Statoil. The new supply approval was made possible through a frame agreement with these two industry-leading companies, and adds Fine Tubes to the Statoil TR2000 approved suppliers list.

Mr Burridge continued: “Having a place on the Statoil TR2000 approved supplier list will open up new opportunities that have been unavailable to us to date and will allow us to be more competitive in a fast growing market. The experience we have gained throughout the process will prove invaluable in our future approval endeavours of other product lines, such as S32750 Super Duplex.”

NORSOK M-650 is among the oil and gas industry’s most demanding quality standards for manufacturing equipment, processes and testing.

About Fine Tubes Ltd

www.finetubes.com

• Fine Tubes Ltd supplies metal tubing for the oil and gas, aerospace, medical, nuclear and power, and chemical process sectors.

• The company’s service includes the design, manufacture and global supply of seamless or welded and redrawn tubes in materials such as stainless steel, nickel and titanium alloys which are chosen by industry leaders all over the world.

• Excellent working relationships with raw materials suppliers and resellers help the Fine Tubes Ltd quality promise extend far beyond its own facilities.

• Fine Tubes Ltd has sales offices in Germany, France and India and currently exports to over 35 countries worldwide.

About NORSOK standards

Developed by the Norwegian petroleum industry and based on international standards, NORSOK standards are designed to ensure high levels of safety, value and cost effectiveness are maintained across industry developments and operations.

The NORSOK M-650 criteria require a review of manufacturing facilities and equipment, processes and testing. After all areas have been assessed and approved, qualification is valid for five years.

About Statoil

www.statoil.com

Statoil is the largest oil and gas operator on the Norwegian continental shelf, and has operations in 36 countries. The company’s TR2000 approved suppliers list is a database of qualified and accepted manufacturers.

JAPAN’S government approved its new, but unpopular, energy policy in April 2014 by reinstating nuclear power as an ‘important base-load power source’. But it has tried to reassure the public that the overall direction towards less reliance on nuclear power generation has not changed, writes World Review author Dr Frank Umbach, Centre for European Security Strategies, Munich, Germany.

‘Japan was the world’s largest LNG importer even before the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in 2011. Its nuclear phase-out after Fukushima resulted in increasing costly-LNG imports,’ he says. ‘This increased its unstable energy import dependencies and related supply insecurities.’
 
Energy supply security has always been a major security concern for Japanese governments. Japan was the third-largest economy in the world, its fourth largest energy consumer, the third largest oil consumer and importer, the second largest coal importer and the world’s largest LNG importer before the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.
 
‘Japan, with limited fossil fuel resources, was only 16 per cent energy self-sufficient at the beginning of 2011 and had one of the highest energy security risk indexes of developed countries despite one of the best energy efficiency standards in the world,’ he says.
 
LNG import prices rose by 38 per cent in 2011 compared with 2010 and between 2010 and 2012, the total value of Japan’s LNG costs surged from 3.5 trillion yen (US$42 billion) to 6.5 trillion yen (US$78 billion).
 
Japan’s rising LNG import dependence and the long-term oil-indexed LNG prices need addressing by the Japanese government and industry to establish a gas-to-gas and spot-LNG market with trading gas hubs, more flexible and long-term gas contracts and a reduced over-dependence on expensive LNG imports.
 
‘Renewable energy sources are still seen as a mid and long-term solution. The loss of Japan’s nuclear reactors has to be replaced primarily by much higher unstable fossil fuel imports in the forthcoming years,’ he says.
 
Read the full World Review article here.

copyright to © 2014 Geopolitical Information Service, http://www.worldreview.info

The European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) has announced Dr. Ignacio Sirés Sadornil as the latest winner of the Carl Wagner Medal of Excellence in Electrochemical Engineering for his exceptional research career in electrochemical wastewater treatment.

Organic pollutants in wastewater streams can cause major problems for industry, such as pollution from dye residues presents a challenge for the textile industry. If left untreated, the wastewater can cause groundwater pollution and ruin farmland¹.

Dr. Sirés, a senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Barcelona, won the award in recognition of his work on the development of effective and economical treatment technologies for wastewater contaminated with dye, pesticide and pharmaceutical residues.

Since starting his research career in the early 2000s, Sirés’ work has focussed on the development of electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs) for water decontamination, in particular organic pollutant degradation. This new technology is based on electro-Fenton reaction chemistry.

Fenton chemistry refers to the oxidation of organic compounds by free radicals generated by the reaction of hydrogen peroxide with an iron catalyst. The work of Sirés has developed electro-Fenton processes, generating the hydrogen peroxide in situ by electrochemical reduction of oxygen.

Professor Manuel Rodrigo, Chair of the EFCE Working Party on Electrochemical Engineering, which nominates the medallists, says: “Dr. Sirés’ research, on the development of novel electrochemical wastewater treatment technologies, has the potential to be scaled up and applied at full scale in industry.

“He has addressed the optimisation of technology in terms of cost, reactor design and developed a deeper understanding of advanced nanostructured electrode materials for organic pollutant degradation. This is the thinking that contributed to our decision to award the Carl Wagner Medal to Dr. Sirés.”

Dr. Sirés, on winning the medal, said: “What a wonderful surprise, I feel really proud to receive such a prestigious award! It adds to the many experiences I have enjoyed with other researchers abroad, who have had a huge impact on my views of science and technology.

“Within my field, I am noticing increasing attention towards the engineering aspects of environmental electrochemistry, which may help us make even more progress. This makes me particularly happy because the interplay of both fields will demonstrate the great effectiveness and viability of electrochemical water treatment technology.”

The Excellence award – comprising of a €1,250 cash prize and certificate – will be presented to Sirés at the 10^th European Symposium on Electrochemical Engineering (ESEE) in Sardinia, Italy. The conference will take place on 28 September – 2 October 2014.

About chemical engineers

Chemical, biochemical and process engineering is the application of science, maths and economics to the process of turning raw materials into everyday products. Professional chemical engineers design, construct and manage process operations all over the world.  Oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, food and drink, synthetic fibres and clean drinking water are just some of the products where chemical engineering plays a central role.

About EFCE

Founded in 1953, The European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) is a non-profit-making association, whose object is to promote co-operation in Europe between non-profit-making professional scientific and technical societies in 30 countries for the general advancement of chemical engineering and as a means of furthering the development of chemical engineering. See www.efce.org

Reference

¹ Clothing to dye for: the textile sector must confront water risks: www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/dyeing-textile-sector-water-risks-adidas

FRP Advisory confirms that Phil Armstrong and Simon Glyn, partners of FRP Advisory, the advisory and restructuring firm, were appointed on 24 April 2014 as Joint Administrators of EvanceWind Turbines Limited ("the Company" or "Evance"), the small wind turbine maker, whose head office is in Loughborough, Leicestershire.

Evance continued to trade as normal throughout the administration process, which enabled an orderly sale of the Company’s business in just over two weeks from the appointment date. The process was competitive with considerable interest from a number of parties.

The business has been as a going concern to Ecotricity, a leading British clean energy firm, preserving all 29 jobs and ensuring it continues to serve its wide range of loyal customers up and down the UK.

Recent government changes to the feed-in tariff system resulted in a reduction to the price commanded for sale of excess electricity to the national grid, causing a drop in sales and deterioration in Evance's cash flow, putting unsustainable pressure on the business.

Phil Armstrong, partner at FRP Advisory and Joint Administrator of Evance, said:

"After a number of years of investment the Company was able to make a profit in 2012/13, primarily based on the quality of its product, but the changes in the market placed the business under substantial pressure leading to a great deal of uncertainty. The sale to new owners was good for creditors and has given the business a fresh start; we wish the new owners every success.”

About FRP Advisory

http://www.frpadvisory.com/

FRP Advisory provides a professional and considered approach to problem solving. With 215 team members including 37 partners operating from 13 office locations across England, Wales and Scotland FRP Advisory is one of the UK’s largest specialists in the area of corporate restructuring, recovery and insolvency with a strong reputation and track record for creating, preserving, and recovering value across a range of complex situations. FRP Advisory’s team of insolvency specialists also has a significant presence in personal insolvency and debt recovery, where it acts for major providers of credit, as well as individuals and partnership businesses who are facing financial challenges. Its advisors work at board level, with investors, lenders, government and regulatory bodies, other professionals and individuals requiring professional support. FRP Advisory provides a wide range of services, as well as specialist industry experience to enable the delivery of sector specific solutions.

Schuler Waghäusel plant has produced one of its biggest-ever hydraulic lines for state-owned Russian company

They take astronauts and tourists to the International Space Station (ISS), supply them with oxygen, food and spare parts and fire satellites into space: the “Soyuz” rockets built by TsSKB-Progress. They have already been launched from cosmodromes like Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Plesetsk in Russia and Kourou in French Guiana some 1,900 times – and following the explosion of the US space shuttle Columbia in 2003, they were temporarily the only connection with the ISS. The Russian state-owned company now plans to produce its launch vehicles on a Schuler press as of 2015.

The pre-acceptance for the hydraulic line with a press force of 2,600 metric tons has already occurred, it is due to be delivered in the end of May. The triple-action press will be used, for example, to produce aluminum tank lids. These must be extremely robust in order to withstand the extreme loads – especially during takeoff. The blank holder above and bed cushion below each provide 600 metric tons of press force.

“With bed dimensions of five by six meters, the line is one of the largest hydraulic presses we’ve ever built in Waghäusel,” says Dr. Martin Habert, Managing Director of Schuler in Waghäusel. Carrier rockets are steadily increasing in size in order to transport ever greater payloads into space. This has led to a growth in the size of components used to assemble the rockets – and the lines on which they are produced.

“This obviously represents a challenge for us in engineering the press,” explains Dr. Habert. The logistics involved are also impressive: the individual line components must not exceed 160 or 170 metric tons in weight – to ensure they can still be safely transported by road. The longest part of the journey, though, will be made by river and sea: via the Rhine, North Sea, Baltic Sea and finally the Volga. Schuler’s experts are confident about the success of the project, however, as they have many decades of experience in producing such large-scale equipment: “There were good reasons for TsSKB-Progress to choose us,” says Managing Director Dr. Habert.

Photo source: Schuler

About the Schuler Group – www.schulergroup.com 

As the technological and global market leader in metal and plastic forming equipment, Schuler offers cutting edge presses, automation, dies, process know-how and services for the entire metal forming industry and lightweight vehicle construction. Its clients include car manufacturers and their suppliers, as well as companies in the forging, household equipment, packaging, energy and electrical industries. Schuler is the market leader in coin minting technology and supplies systems solutions for the aerospace, railway and large pipes industries. The company can trace its roots back to a locksmith shop founded by Louis Schuler in 1839 and celebrates its 175th anniversary in 2014. In fiscal year 2012/13 (ending Sep. 30), Schuler posted sales of € 1,185.9 million. With 5,600 employees, Schuler is represented in 40 nations around the world. The Austrian ANDRITZ Group holds a majority share in Schuler.

Breaking trends and critical upstream issues addressed at 21^st Africa Oil Week

Key players in- and leading thinkers on Africa’s Hydrocarbons; major opportunities highlighted within the upstream arena.  

The 21^st Africa Oil Week starting on November 3^rd leading up to November 7^th in Cape Town will focus on Leading Corporate Players in Africa, Africa's Giant Plays & Opportunities, New Frontier Openings, Foreign State Oil Companies, Africa's Exploration Potential containing Government Presentations and Road shows.

Business leaders

The 21^st Africa Oil Week expects 1,600 senior-level delegates, with 100 senior high-level presentations. Government delegations will be present with over 140 corporate/state speakers on the program and over 160 exhibition booths displaying a wide range of growing service and supply industry operators found across Africa’s oil and gas-LNG value chain.

Strategy briefing                                                                                                                                                                                        
The 16th Annual Scramble for Africa: Strategy Briefing 2014, held during the 21th Africa Oil Week 2014 will track changing competitor maps in Africa for oil and gas-LNG companies, providing seasoned insights and interpretations on around 500 players. Key focus lies on Minnows "Born In Africa", Worldwide Independents, Super Independents & Super-Majors and Foreign-African National Oil Companies.

The 21st Africa Oil Week includes the following:

• Special Sessions on: “Hydrocarbon Hardball” with leading thinkers and on Africa’s exploration technologies
• Allied Showcase components on corporate Farmouts and Government Roadshows
• Young Professionals In Oil, Gas & Energy Session
• Global Women Petroleum & Energy Club: Africa Business Breakfast
• 21st Annual “Big Five” Board Awards (2014), and related Awards
• The 66th PetroAfricanus Dinner in Africa
• Numerous all-inclusive social and five-star dinner functions and official conference receptions including the Grand Africa Beach Café Annual Braai-BBQ
• Canadian Government hosted breakfast meeting

Source: Global Pacific & Partners

Fiat Powertrain is upgrading the CNC systems of 20 key machine tools used on the crankshaft and cylinder block production lines of its engine manufacturing plant in Campo Largo, Brazil, in order to extend their life cycle and minimise future maintenance downtime. Each machine requires a custom upgrade kit, comprising a high performance CNC unit, servo drives and motors, specifically designed by NUM to facilitate fast installation and to provide improved diagnostics and simplified spares handling.

Part of Fiat Chrysler group, Fiat Powertrain operates manufacturing plants at strategic locations around the world, including four in South America. Its Campo Largo plant on the outskirts of the Brazilian city of Curitiba specialises in the manufacture of 1.6 litre and 1.8 litre ‘E.torQ’ flexfuel engines for medium size cars, which can run on petrol or ethanol. Originally set up by Chrysler and purchased by Fiat in 2008, the plant is one of the most modern in South America and plays an important role in Fiat’s leadership of the Brazilian automotive market – a position it has held for the past 12 years. The Campo Largo plant currently produces about 230,000 engines a year.

The Campo Largo plant make extensive use of multi-axis CNC transfer machines, machining centres and specialist machine tools throughout its manufacturing operations. These include a wide range of Cinetic-Landis crankshaft grinding machines, Heller machines for the external milling and grinding of crankshafts, and transfer machines produced by Comau – a Fiat subsidiary – for engine block machining. In total, the plant’s crankshaft and cylinder block production lines are equipped with 20 key CNC machines, involving more than 120 feed axes. Each of these machines was originally controlled by a NUM 1050 series CNC unit, with NUM MDLU1 servo drives and NUM BMH series servomotors.

As the CNC systems aged, Fiat Powertrain became increasingly concerned with the likelihood of increased downtime. Troubleshooting and sourcing spare parts, as well as performing general machine maintenance, was threatening to take too long and impact production throughput. Since mechanically the machines were perfectly serviceable, in 2012 the company took the strategic decision to extend the life cycle of the production lines by upgrading all 20 machines with modern CNC controllers, drives and motors.

After reviewing various CNC manufacturers’ products and services, Fiat Powertrain concluded that NUM offered the best upgrade solution for the specific needs of the plant because it is the CNC OEM for the current machines and was able to provide a faster-to-implement solution with the best benefit/cost ratio. As Tarcisio Cruz Filho, Technical Support Manager at the Campo Largo plant, explains: “The fact that we are upgrading machines used for everyday production imposes some very demanding conditions. We needed a CNC supplier with the expertise and resources to collaborate on the design and installation of systems here in Brazil, while the systems themselves had to provide exactly the same level of functionality as our existing CNC equipment. We are impressed by the commitment to the project shown by NUM’s management team in Switzerland and by the quality of technical support – including several on-site visits – provided by their USA office, especially given that the Brazilian market for this CNC series is not huge.

A key requirement of the replacement CNC systems was that they needed to be engineered in such a manner that the upgrade could be accomplished as quickly as possible to minimise manufacturing disruption. Using video conferencing, technical teams from Fiat Powertrain and NUM quickly established that NUM’s Axium CNC platform provided the least invasive upgrade solution for the machines, by using the same robust architecture as the earlier generation 1050 series CNC to keep wiring and software modifications to a minimum.

As part of the CNC upgrade process, the servo drives on each machine are being replaced by models from NUM’s latest NUMDrive C range; these are some of the most efficient and highest power density drives on the market, which further simplifies installation by obviating the need for complex rack cooling arrangements.

The upgrade program also calls for the motors on all the feed axes of the machines to be replaced. Originally, these were fitted with NUM BMH series brushless servomotors, which are robust medium inertia designs that were popular with machine tool designers for diverse positioning applications. However, they have now been superseded by NUM’s BPH series motors, which provide enhanced performance and environmental protection. The new BPH motors have physically identical shaft ends, pilot diameters and flange squares as their earlier-generation counterparts – again, making replacement a simple task – and the orientation of their power and sensor connectors can be altered during installation to suit the machine configuration. NUM also provides short adapter cables so that the existing motor wiring does not need to be changed, which saves a significant amount of time.

Tarcisio Cruz Filho points out that speed of upgrade is vital to Fiat Powertrain’s production schedules, “We allowed for a maximum of four days out-of-service time for each CNC machine on our crankshaft and cylinder block production lines. Most of the machines on these lines have now been upgraded and in each case – even on complex machines with seven controlled axes plus spindles – it has taken less time than we allocated, which says much for the CNC design and planning. The machines’ diagnostics are now much better, allowing us to perform more efficient preventative maintenance, and our technicians are now familiar with the CNC systems, all of which will help reduce production downtime in the future. We are on-schedule to complete the upgrades by the end of this year.”

In fact, collaboration in knowledge transfer proved to be another valuable point of the partnership. As Claudio Rocha, Manufacturing Engineering Director for Fiat Powertrain’s Latin American operations states: “The exchange of information and the training that NUM provided for our maintenance staff during the upgrade were important. We appreciate this open approach and the commitment demonstrated by the supplier in this program.”

According to Steven Schilling, General Manager of NUM Corporation in Naperville, Illinois, “Our engineers have considerable experience with highly specialised CNC machines of this type used in the automotive industry – we have a history of servicing the ‘Big Three’ in Detroit, Canada and Mexico. In this case, Fiat was fully involved at each phase of the upgrade, working under NUM’s guidance. This has enabled Fiat’s control technicians at the Campo Largo plant to gain a high level of NUM system know-how, to help achieve the project’s overall goal of maximising the production lines’ life cycle. This a prime example of NUM’s ability to provide customers with end-to-end service options, allowing Fiat to keep ‘one step ahead’ of the competition.”

Steve Moore, NUM (UK) Ltd, Unit 5 Fairfield Court, Seven Stars Industrial Estate, Wheler Road, Coventry CV3 4LJ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)871 750 4020; Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; www.num.com.

Biofuel plays an important part in the drive to achieve national and international targets for reducing climate emissions from the transportation sector. It is predicted that authorities will provide incentives to stimulate an increased mix of sustainable biofuel in oil-based fuels.

"Statkraft views biofuel as an interesting area in renewable energy. I believe that the collaboration with Södra will be a solid basis for development of the project," says Statkraft CEO, Christian Rynning-Tønnesen.

"Södra is monitoring with great interest the technology developments and the business opportunities presented by the use of forest raw materials for industrial production of climate-neutral fuels. We have also enjoyed good collaboration with Statkraft in the past and look forward to joining the two companies' expertise and experience in this project," says Södra's CEO Lars Idermark.

Infrastructure already in place
The letter of intent means that Statkraft will take over all of the shares in Södra Cell Tofte AS and that Södra and Statkraft will form a new biofuel company in which Södra will own a 49 per cent share and Statkraft a 51 per cent share.

The Tofte industrial site is favourably situated for a future venture into the area of biofuel. The location has an established infrastructure that can handle large volumes of wood, and it is located centrally in Eastern Norway, with a good deep-water port.

Statkraft is Europe's largest producer of renewable energy and the leading power company in Norway. The group owns, produces and develops hydroelectric power, wind power, gas power and district heating. Statkraft is a major player in the European energy trading market and has 3,600 employees in more than 20 countries.

Södra is a group with extensive forestry operations and a leading producer of paper pulp, sawn timber and bioenergy. The Group is owned by 50,000 forest owners in southern Sweden, has 3,500 employees and revenue of SEK 17 billion.

To find out more:
Statkraft spokesperson, Knut Fjerdingstad, tel. +47 901 86 310.
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
or www.statkraft.no

President of Södra Cell Tofte AS, Christen Grønvold-Hansen,
tel. +46 70 646 33 37. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Unison has won a major tube bending machinery order from British Airways, for use in its Heathrow-based aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility. The order calls for Unison to supply a unique turnkey solution for fabricating precision tubular parts, based on two bending machines that are widely used in the aerospace industry. One machine is a semi-manual bender with CNC control, the other is a fully CNC all-electric model. Unison will also be providing all associated tooling, together with a portable coordinate measuring machine and advanced program generation software.

• tube bending package can reverse-engineer parts within minutes
• two-machine capability supports wide ranging MRO strategy

To maximize operational efficiency, British Airways maintains its fleet of aircraft in-house. The loss of revenue resulting from the grounding of a modern aircraft can be astronomical, making fast-turnaround MRO capabilities vital to economic performance.

Unison's tube bending solution will meet the long-term needs of this critical repair and maintenance workshop. British Airways has embarked on a major upgrade to its fleet of long-haul aircraft, which is set to include the addition of Boeing 787 Dreamliners and Airbus A380 superjumbos over the next 10 years. The introduction of these latest-generation aircraft poses numerous new challenges for the airline’s repair and maintenance personnel.

One area that is receiving particular attention is the fabrication of replacement rigid hydraulic tubes. The central hydraulic systems of Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 aircraft operate at 5,000 psi – most commercial aircraft have 3,000 psi systems – to allow use of smaller and lighter hydraulic components. Much of the interconnecting hydraulic pipework is manufactured from specialist aerospace materials such as titanium alloy, using thick tube walls to accommodate the high working pressures; a 25 mm hydraulic tube for an aileron actuator, for example, would typically have a wall thickness of 2.5 mm.

Fabricating replacement high pressure hydraulic tubes from these materials economically – without generating expensive scrap – and to the very high quality and safety standards demanded by the aerospace industry requires precision bending and measurement equipment, backed by application-specific knowledge. Following the decision to upgrade the tube fabrication capabilities of its repair and maintenance workshop, British Airways therefore sought a tube bending machine company with proven expertise in the aerospace sector. Unison was an obvious contender; the company’s all-electric tube bending technology is used by a number of leading aerospace manufacturers, including Boeing and Airbus, to produce parts for engines and airframes. In fact, Unison machines are already used to produce hydraulic fluid lines for both the 787 Dreamliner and A380.

For the British Airways application, Unison configured a complete turnkey MRO package for tubular components, to provide quick and cost-effective repair of fluid lines on aircraft by reverse-engineering OEM parts and then re-creating them in the workshop. The package covers tube sizes from a few millimetres up to 40 mm in diameter and accommodates the variety of materials used in this application, including stainless steel and titanium alloy.

For demanding bending tasks, such as rotary draw bending of thick-walled titanium alloy or large diameter tubes, the package includes a single-stack 40 mm machine from Unison’s Breeze range of all-electric tube benders. This machine will also be equipped with Unison’s unique laser-controlled springback measurement and correction. The system ensures bending precision by automatically compensating for the natural tendency of metal tubes to spring back slightly after being bent, eliminating expensive scrap by facilitating right-first-time results.

For cost effective bending of intricate stainless steel tube parts with smaller diameters up to 30 mm, Unison is supplying British Airways with an EvBend 1000 machine. Capable of extremely accurate left and right hand bending, this CNC controlled manually powered machine is a popular choice with metal fabricators for precision low-volume work, such as aerospace parts manufacture. Originally developed by a specialist tube manipulation company, Silkmead Tubular, EvBend 1000 machines are now manufactured by Unison in Scarborough.

If a suitable CAD file for the tubular part is available, tube fabrication data can be extracted and downloaded direct to the appropriate bending machine. However, a more likely scenario is that, at least in the first instance, there will be no supporting design data for a tube that needs replacing. In this instance, after removing the worn or damaged part from the aircraft, maintenance personnel will obtain the tube’s physical measurements and then process the information to create a suitable bending program.

The package being supplied to British Airways also includes a FARO coordinate measuring machine (CMM) that uses laser and tactile measurement techniques to acquire detailed and highly accurate 3D representations of tubes, together with VTube-LASER software from Advanced Tubular Technologies. This software automatically converts CMM data into a form suitable for use on bending machines, enabling tubular parts to be cloned in a matter of minutes.

Under the terms of the order from British Airways, in addition to supplying the complete turnkey tube fabrication solution, Unison is responsible for all aspects of bending machine integration and associated equipment connectivity. As Unison’s Managing Director, Alan Pickering, points out, “This turnkey solution demands tight integration of hardware and software resources to create a seamless production environment for efficient on-demand manufacture of specialist precision parts. By assigning responsibility for the performance of the entire installation to Unison, British Airways can be confident that its tube fabrication requirements are fully met from the outset.”

For more information please contact Alan Pickering at:

Unison Ltd, Faroe House, Thornburgh Road, Scarborough, YO11 3UY, UK Tel: +44 (0)1723 582868; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; http://www.unisonltd.com