Scheuerle vehicle transports rotor blades 680km

“The length of rotor blade transports is always a challenge! Everything went very smoothly during the complete assignment,” said Peter Schwandner, managing director of P. Schwandner Logistik + Transport.

“Normally, we would use a telescopic semi-trailer for such transport assignments. In order to get through the various bottlenecks using this, we would have had to dismantle crash barriers,” said Schwandner. “The RBTS provides us with significant economic advantages.”

The system from Scheuerle offers advantages on uneven surfaces as it can be used to compensate for large differences in height between the dolly and trailing unit. The lifting height reaches up to 2m at the front and up to 1m at the rear.

“We could not have been able to move the new V162 blade type from Vestas at all without the RBTS," added Schwandner.

The latest rotor blades are 70m long and the diameter of the rotor blade root has also increased significantly over previous blades. Using a conventional telescopic trailer can reach a height of over 4.5m, whereas the trailing unit concept—whereby the rotor blade serves as a link between the mounting on the tractor and the trailing unit—offers a total height of around 4m.

"We expect to see an increasing number of rotor blades with lengths of more than 80m," concluded Schwandner.

The RBTS is a joint development between Scheuerle and wind turbine specialist Vestas. The system consists of a two-axle dolly together with a free-turning device and a four-axle trailing unit.

The blade root is lifted from the ground and the root adapter and root frame is connected, this frame is secured to the free-turning device. A clamp on the dolly is used to fix the tip of the rotor blade into position. The attachment of the blade facilitates torsion-free mounting and safe transportation.

For return runs the RBTS can also be shortened to a 16.5m long tractor-trailer combination, 2.55m wide, under 4m high and less than 40t. This means that no special permit is required for an empty run. In addition, the RBTS can be adapted to accommodate rotor blades from other manufacturers.