INTERNATIONAL AND SPECIA
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UK heavy lift and transport
company ALE transporting wind
turbine blades to a wind farm in South Africa
Specialist in heavy
lifting, Franz Bracht,
used a Terex Superlift
3800 lattice boom
crawler crane to erect
Enercon E-101 wind
turbines at the Scharrel
community wind farm,
Ostermoor, Germany.
The turbines have a
hub height of 149 m. The
nacelles weigh 67 tonnes each and the blades
are 50 m long. To install the turbines the 3800
was configured with a 153 m main boom and
12 m LF superlift. When installing the tower
sections the 3800 worked in tandem with a
wheeled mobile crane to prevent the sections
from swinging.
Michael Hildebrand, crane operator, said,
“Despite the enormous wire rope length of
167 m that we used for these lifts, the
smoothly running hook block made sure that
the blades didn’t start swinging around.”
The crane is capable of climbing to a
free-standing hoist height of more than
100 m. “After being anchored to the wind
turbine tower, the climbing process is
continued until the crane reaches a hoist
height of 170 m,” Frech continues. “When it
is in this position it can assemble the entire
wind turbine, consisting of tower segments,
nacelle and rotor blades in wind speeds of
up to 18 metres per second.”
The right choice
For end users and rental companies
carrying out wind turbine installation, there
are a number of new choices and upgrades
available to choose from, as a spokesperson
from crane rental company Barnhart,
based in the USA, explains, “Most crane
manufacturers are offering models with
specific upgrades such as additional
boom and counter weight configurations,
heavy boom, wind jibs, self erection and
additional computer modification software.
This is just a snapshot of things that are
considered when selecting a crane package
for a wind site.”
Mikut adds, “We use the wind
attachment (WA) for the Manitowoc 16000,
which allows the same 16000 model to lift
and install anything from the older and
smaller 1.5 MW turbines to the newer 2.5
MW and larger wind turbines on towers
between 80 m and 85 m.”
WIND TURBINE ERECTION
Another adaptation from Manitowoc
is its new Boom Raising System.
Bohnenkamp explains, “To help our
crawler crane users we have introduced
a new Boom Raising System, which is
designed to raise longer crawler crane
boom lengths for wind applications without
the need of an assist crane.”
The system works through the use of
a large hydraulic cylinder housed in a 3
m boom insert section that attaches to
the boom butt, Bohnenkamp explains.
The boom raising cylinder then works
in conjunction with the boom hoist by
exerting an upward force on the boom.
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