Mammoet has purchased its first ultra-wide onshore wind tower clamp set, with three more scheduled for delivery before the end of Q1 2022. The investment opens up more paths to the wind farm for increasingly large turbine sections, it said.
The clamp set means that fewer modifications are necessary to verges, street furniture or bridges during onshore wind transport projects. It also allows new, larger designs of wind turbine generator to reach remote sites – where winds are strongest and most reliable – much more efficiently.
According to Mammoet, as developers seek to make the most of wind farm locations, turbines have grown taller to reach stronger, uninterrupted winds. Consequently, the base tower sections of these turbines have widened from around 4.5 m just a few years ago to over 6 m today. Their centre of gravity during transport has risen from the ground – as much as 1.5 m above earlier models. Beyond 4.5 m, conventional trailers are considered not stable enough to perform transport of the largest tower models safely.
For these larger tower sections, the only alternative has been to transport them on top of heavy-duty trailers with hydraulic suspension. However, this combination needs crane loading and unloading, is far less manoeuvrable and has a ride height 1.2 m higher than a clamp solution.
This new ultra-wide onshore wind tower clamp, fabricated by Greiner, is installed on turntables between a mixture of an air suspension jeep-dolly and conventional multi-axle hydraulic trailers in the rear, forming a modular vehicle capable of completing narrow sequences of turns without leaving the road surface.
The system can receive tower sections directly from supports, this no cranes are required at any stage of the journey. During projects, it will be used to transport the lower, wider tower sections, while higher, thinner sections will be transported by existing clamp systems. The system can transport up to 6.3 m-wide tower sections at lower overall heightsand is already in active service
www.greiner-fahrzeugtechnik.de
