Uneek Bending has continued its long running relationship with the Australian Open Tennis Championships, once again manufacturing a number of parts to be used throughout the 2010 competition at Melbourne Park. The parts included a number of handrails and balustrades used along the venue's various concourses. The photo to the right shows one of the balustrades being installed with a view of Hisence arena, Melbourne Park's second largest arena, in the background.
The player and umpire stands that Uneek Bending Produced for the 2009 open will also once again be on display this year [2009 news article].
The new Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, due for completion in May 2010, is a 31500 seat, $268 million stadium currently being built in Melbourne's Olympic Park precinct. The Stadium features a rounded, bubble-like exterior design including thousands of LED lights that will provide a unique light show at night. It will also soon be the new home of Melbourne's A-League soccer team, Melbourne's Rugby League team as well as the offices of Tennis Australia.
While at a glance the outside of the stadium appears to be made out of rounded metal tube it is in fact made up purely of straight pieces welded together at different angles to form the illusion of roundedness (much to the disappointment of us at Uneek!!). However the light towers actually do contain large, curved lengths of 200NB Pipe. Uneek Bending is manufacturing these parts during January 2010, they will be delivered and installed in time for the festival planned to launch the stadium in early May.
In November 2009 Uneek Bending won the contract to build a large heating coil for a large offshore oil rig. The heating coil is an impressive piece of engineering. It consists of two twin start helical coils made from 150NB Schedule 40 pipe designed to sit precisely inside each other. Once assembled the coil measures over 3.6m in diameter and over 7m in length weighing some 22.7 tonnes. Once installed and filled with over 15000 litres of fluid this weight will increase to more than 37 tonnes.
In order to produce the coils with as much accuracy as possible each turn was checked with state-of-the-art laser measurement equipment. Each weld was also radiographed to check for defects. Have a look at the pictures below to get an idea of how large the coils really are and the Youtube video to see what it takes to move them!
As part of Foster's Group's Summer 2009/2010 nationwide advertising campaign drinkers of VB will have the chance to win one of about 550 'pop up bars' whenever they buy a slab of VB. Uneek Bending produced a number of parts for the portable bars, which includes a roof, footrest, sturdy bar-top as well as space for an esky. The bar can fold away for easy transport and is designed to be fully assembled in under 2 minutes
Uneek Bending's experience in precision bending of a variety of materials, including an assortment of different size tubes and various aluminium extrusions, was put to good use in getting the thousands of individual parts ready in time for the beginning of Foster's multi-million dollar advertising campaign.
This impressive decorative spiral, positioned prominently above a main escalator leading down to Crown Casino's 'Galactic Circus' area in Melbourne, was rolled by Uneek in late 2009. It is about 4m high and 1.5m in diameter and made of a powder coated steel flat welded onto a frame to keep the structure rigid.
Uneek has had a long history with Hazelwood Power Station, manufacturing countless parts for the station over the last 10 years. So when it came to the 2009 refurbishment of Hazelwood's Unit 2 Furnace, International Power, Hazelwood's parent company, came to us to bend the hundreds of boiler tubes that make up the side and front water wall tubes as well as the furnace arch.
In all there were over 4000 bends in over 500 individual parts. These parts were not all identical either, there are over 130 unique three-dimensional shapes, each of which was checked and calculated by our engineering staff before being sent to our factory for manufacture. During manufacture each and every one of the bends was checked for ovality and wall thinning by our technical staff and the sets were assembled to double check they had been produced as accurately as possible. Delivery of the tubes began in late June 2009 and the entire project is expected to be completed in a matter of weeks.
The need for some remarkable rolling and forming has seen Uneek Bending become involved in the Queenscliff Harbour Redeveloment, a major project being undertaken by Parks Victoria, the State Government and Queenscliff Harbour Pty Ltd. Uneek was contracted by Austeng to manufacture the large crowning feature that sits atop the newly constructed Queenscliff Harbour Observation Tower, it is visible for many kilometers around. The Part itself is about 3m high and 2m in diameter and is made up of over 100 rolled aluminium sections. It was manufactured and assembled at out dandenong factory and delivered to the site in early 2009.
Uneek Bending has once again won the contract to manufacture the umpire, player and officials seating and sun screening for Tennis Australia. With a lead time of eight weeks all stops were pulled out to meet the deadline and deliver the finished products in time for the 2009 Australian Open.
The contract covered a complete upgrade of all 24 courts utilized at the open and coincided with the launch of the new blue floor covering for all courts. The main structures were constructed from 38mm Aluminium Tube and 38mm Aluminium Rope Track which were rolled, bent and fabricated at our Dandenong South Facility.
A commercial relationship with organisations such as Tennis Australia can only be achieved by supplying a product that meets all of the relevant safety and manufacturing standards and is delivered on time and on budget. We look forward to working with Tennis Australia again for the next open!
Our Director of Engineering, Dale Theobald, has written an article on our website entitled 'The Fine Art of Tube Bending'. It gives a brief insight into how much work goes into each and every one of our bends and also clarifies some of the common misconceptions about tube bending.
Uneek Bending has just added this news section to its site. Expect to see articles posted here regularly providing information about whats new at Uneek Bending.
