Category: Cranes and special transport
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AutoTURN special transport simulation: pros and cons
Working in Vestas at dozen of wind farms worldwide I’ve had the opportunity to use frequently AutoTURN to simulate bends and other complicated maneuvers (for instance in towns or near existing structures) with special transports (mainly wind blades and tower section trailers). Although it is not cheap (the price was almost 1800 € plus VAT:…
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Wind blades train transport
Wind blades are normally carried by ship and truck. By the way every now and than I see cases of train transportation: for instance Siemens moved 141 set of wind turbine blades (for the amazing total of 423 blades) to Portland General Electric’s Biglow Canyon Wind Farm. Siemens is also transporting towers and nacelles via…
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Maximum wind farm internal road gradient
This is another standard problem I found in the wind farm I’m working with: mountainous areas, with difficult access and very strong inclination. The standard maximum slope imposed by several manufacturers (for instance Repower and Gamesa) for safe transport on gravel roads is about 6% to 7%. Above 7% other technical solution may be necessary,…
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Vertical transitions curves in wind farm
The main problem with turbine tower trailers is that they are very low. For this reason we normally use long transition curves in vertical alignment, with a parameter of the parabola (Kv) of 400 or even more. This is the best approach, as for instance the alternative of a minimum length definition of the transition…
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Wind Turbine erection: 2 cranes working together
To lift the biggest component of the WTG, such as the tower segments or the blades, two cranes are used at the same time. A principal crane, normally a Liebherr 1600 or a Demag CC2800, is helped by a smaller crane, often a rubber-tired rough terrain crane, for instance a Terex RT1120. Both cranes start…
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Narrow track cranes
In wind farms construction usually at least 2 cranes are needed: a main crane to lift component such as tower segments, blades and rotor and a smaller crane called “auxiliary” that help the main crane during the lift operations to manipulate the wind turbine component. The auxiliary crane can also be used to move steel…
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Nacelle Trailer (Low Loader)
Nacelle trailer (also called low loader) is one of the special vehicles currently used to carry WTG components from the factory to the wind farm. His peculiarity is that it’s very low, only a few centimetres above the road: this is to allow transportation on public road, where bridges with a free height of 5…
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Carrying blades with a balloon
In very complicated wind farms blades and sometimes other components are carried by helicopters – an expensive solution, to be used only as “last option”. What I’ve discovered today is that a balloon was used by CL CargoLifter to carry the blades in a small scale test made for Nordex at the former airport of…
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Wind turbines components transport problems
Transport related problems occupy a relevant percentage of time in my department. It’s no big surprise, considering that the models that we are selling (V90, V100 and V112) have blades up to 55 meters. Usually we have 3 different kinds of problems: Bending radius Vertical transition curves (for instance on top of hills) Weight…