For air-handling specialists Trox UK, manufacturing a chilled-beam air-handling system for use in the ‘smart building’ refit of London’s iconic, 17-storey Space House office development required a solution almost as striking as the building’s 1960s design. That solution came in the form of a manually operated EvBend 1000 CNC tube bender from UK-based tube and pipe bending machinery manufacturers, Unison Ltd.

With a conventional ducted HVAC system considered impractical, as it would significantly reduce the ceiling height of each floor in the 255,000 sq ft circular Space House building, the task for Trox UK was to create a chilled-beam solution that it was possible to conceal between each of the ceiling coffers that radiated outwards from the centre of the structure. With 17 floors to consider, as well as a link bridge to an adjoining office block, however, that equated to some 2500 chilled beams, each containing four water coils served with hot and cold water by standard 15 mm copper pipe.

“It’s fair to say that the complexity of the project presented very real manufacturing challenges,” says Martyn Mills, chief design engineer at Trox UK. “In reality, we were looking at a task that would involve some 15,000 m of copper pipe, with approximately 50,000 soldered joints. Even if they could recruit them, the number of plumbers required to cut the copper pipe to size and solder the joints – never mind the associated cost – would be considerable. Additionally, such a large number of soldered joints would clearly increase the likelihood of leaks, and that was a risk we weren’t prepared to take. Hence, we took the decision to see if a suitable, capable, high-quality CNC tube bending machine existed. When we’d looked in the past, we couldn’t justify the cost. However, after a little bit of online research, we came across the EvBend 1000 manually operated CNC machine from Unison.”

A meeting with Unison’s key account manager, Steve Haddrell, and a machine demonstration convinced the Trox UK team that the Unison EvBend 1000, a machine widely used for bending precision components across the aerospace and motorsport sectors, would more than meet its needs.

Due to the urgent nature of Trox UK’s requirement – it was April 2022 and the business needed to be producing bent pipe by early August – Haddrell arranged for the company to take delivery of an EvBend 1000 machine that had previously been on display at a machine tool exhibition. Reconfigured with a longer bed to take copper pipe of up to 3 m in length, the machine was installed at Trox UK’s Norfolk manufacturing facility in early July, with full training provided.

Trox UK is a specialist in the design and manufacture of HVAC and building services components and integrated systems for air conditioning, ventilation and fire safety. As part of the global Trox Group, which is headquartered in Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany, Trox UK was created as the first international subsidiary in 1962 (today one of 34 subsidiaries worldwide). From its 155,000 sq ft manufacturing facility and offices in Thetford and an office in the City of London, the company has provided its products, support and expertise on many of the most prestigious landmark commercial development construction and infrastructure projects throughout the UK, delivering for some of the most recognised global brands. The project at the Space House office development is among recent examples of notable projects executed successfully by Trox UK.

“Following guidance from Unison and a fairly steep learning curve in bending copper pipe, we got off to a flying start,” says Mills. “In fact, we were confidently producing accurate and repeatable offset bends within a few days, bends that would otherwise have involved an awful lot of pipe cutting and soldering. Our Unison EvBend 1000 machine is simple to program, easy to use and cost us less than £40,000.

Between August last year and March 2023, the Trox UK production team successfully bent no fewer than 20,000 lengths of copper pipe, enabling the manufacture of all the chilled beams required for Space House well within time.

“Using the EvBend 1000 also halved our production costs, meaning the machine paid for itself over the course of the project,” says Mills.“Perhaps, most importantly, with a highly capable and versatile manual CNC pipe bender on site, we are now better equipped for the most challenging of HVAC projects. In fact, we have incorporated the EvBend’s capabilities into our design for manufacture production strategies.”

Adds Haddrell: “It was a pleasure to supply Trox UK with a new Unison EvBend 1000 machine. While we typically recommend EvBend models for specialist, low-volume applications, such as those found in aerospace, Formula One and the oil and gas industry, it was rewarding to see that our manually operated, CNC-controlled tube bending machine is equally suited to pipe bending challenges such as those faced by Trox, and all for a fraction of the cost of a fully automated tube or pipe bending machine.”

Unison’s EvBend 1000 is a high-precision three-axis machine that reduces the entry cost to precision rotary draw tube bending. The machine combines manually operated feed, tube rotation and bending force, with CNC-controlled braking on the carriage feed, rotation and bend arm axes.

Typically used for low volume, high-accuracy production and prototyping, Unison EvBend machines offer accurate multi-plane bending at a much lower cost than many CNC benders. Two models are currently available: the EvBend 1000 for bending tube of up to 16 mm in diameter; and the EvBend 2000, a machine featuring power-assisted operation and capable of bending tube of up to 50 mm in diameter. The EvBend CNC control includes a PC-based 15” touchscreen and is capable of processing up to 100 bends per component.
For further information www.unisonltd.com