The Blade Way Concept
During the past few years the market for servicing existing wind turbines has grown rapidly. One of the more significant market segments is for exchanging blades. Commonly, large mobile cranes are used, together with a blade yoke. The costs associated with the use of a crane are high, and so cheaper solutions are being sought.
By Per Fenger and Ruben Tjell Lambertsen, Liftra, Denmark
The already high costs of using cranes are often increased significantly by the groundworks necessary to improve the approach roads to the wind farm and allow access across the site itself. Availability is another issue when using large mobile cranes. It can take months to get the needed crane to the desired spot, due to the limited number of these cranes and the distance to the wind farm. One solution to the above challenges is to do away with the need for cranes by attaching pulley blocks to the upper blades and suspending two wires between these and two ground-placed winches. Two yokes are attached onto the wires, one for the blade root end and one for the blade tip end. The blade is clamped and secured by the two yokes which then transport the blade along the wires using the principle of a cableway – which is why the product is named Blade Way.
