Knud E Hansen has launched a new wind turbine maintenance platform – the "Jack-up on Jack-up" concept. This four-legged jack-up vessel features a 15-metre wide working platform, which can be elevated to the height of the nacelle, providing a platform for maintenance work on the blades and eliminating the need for rope access.
With a telescopic weather cover fitted on the platform, work on the blades can be done in practically all weather conditions, day or night.
A large, air-conditioned workshop is located at the aft end of the work platform. When the weather cover is deployed, a virtual factory hall is created around the blade, allowing all types of work to be performed. Additionally, with the possibility of inserting an X-Y motion compensating system between the work platform and the platform carriers, the "factory hall" can remain geostationary. A "cherry picker" mounted on a hammer head at the platform’s opposite end provides access to the nacelle.
The main crane is fitted on the elevating structure, allowing for the use of a conventional pedestal-mounted crane with a boom. Measuring 154 metres in length and 64.4 metres in breadth, this vessel is designed for all kinds of maintenance work on wind turbines up to 20 MW, including replacement and handling of nacelles weighing as much as 1,000 tonnes at a hub height of 175 metres, and managing blades up to 130 metres long. This can be done while it is jacked up in 80-metre water depth.
Two crew access vessels are arranged in davits on the aft deck. With a retractable boat landing that can reach the water when the vessel is jacked up, the vessel can work as a mother vessel for crew transfer vessels (CTVs) working in the area.
