Unison has developed a bending cell
for tube and pipe manufacturer
RathGibson at its Wisconsin facility
to serve growing demand for Ushaped
heat exchanger components.

A version of Unison’s servomotorbased
tube bending machine uses a
roll-forming tool to create customradius
tubular parts under software
control, eliminating much of the
tooling and set-up time previously
required. The automatic bending cell
is linked to the tube manufacturing
process. At the start of the cell is a
saw and infeed conveyor. Once a U
shape part is programmed or selected
from a database of designs, the control
program computes the length of
tube required and issues a command
to the saw. Cut tube is fed into the
cell’s conveyor system, and accurately
positioned for bending with the aid
of laser reflection sensors.