South Korean specialist transport company Anjeon Enterprise is transporting wind turbine blades along a 15km route along steep forest roads with gradients up to 11 per cent. The work is part of the Uiseong Hwanghaksan Onshore Wind Farm Project, currently under development in the Hwanghaksan area of Uiseong-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. It is one of the country’s largest onshore wind initiatives.
The power project features 15 state-of-the-art 6.6 MW Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy wind turbines, each with rotor diameters of up to 170 metres and towers approximately 180 metres high. The turbines are distributed along an eight-kilometre corridor, with an estimated annual energy production of around 146,000 MWh – enough to power more than 40,000 households.
To transport the 85-metre-long, 28-tonne turbine blades Anjeon Enterprise has been using a combination of Faymonville WingMAX flatbed trailers and Cometto BladeMAX1000 blade lifters mounted on Cometto SPMTs.
The transportation process is carried out in two phases. In the first phase, blades are moved to an intermediate staging area using three-axle WingMAX vehicles. The combination of pendle-axles and a hydraulically liftable and lowerable gooseneck allows the trailers to navigate obstacles along the route.
In the second phase blades are transferred using the BladeMAX1000 to the final wind farm site. The BladeMAX1000 means that in challenging sections the rotor blades can be raised up to 60 degrees and rotated 360 degrees as required.
Handling stability is further enhanced, says Faymonville, by the patented stability control system (SCS) on the Cometto SPMTs where data from multiple sensors is collected and processed by a central control unit, providing precise and safe blade handling.
