How do you transport wind turbine blades?

If you've ever seen wind turbines, you'll find them located far away. These renewable energy generators are actually scattered along the hillside and may seem small from a distance, but these structures can actually reach 76 meters high. As a result, many of them are taller than 20 floors, and the specially designed blades attached to these towers are not small. These huge components are usually made in China, which produces a large number of modules for wind energy companies around the world. Back in 2019, energy companies around the world needed to use some tight packaging and some large ships to facilitate the delivery of blades.  Vestas installed 156 new V120 blades on wind turbine blade truck. The wind turbine on truck is large and heavy, and the loading process alone takes a full week to complete. The wind turbine transportation travels more than 1,800 kilometers, but in order to ensure that the wind turbine truck remains stable and safe, windmill blade on truck can only run at a top speed of about 40 kilometers per hour.

wind turbine blade trailer

stretch trailer 

We've determined how to do wind turbine blade transport overseas, but how do windmill blade transport get to the top of the mountain? That's where reliable blade lifter/rotor blade adaptor and retractable stretch trailers come in. These trucks distribute the weight of the individual blades on a extendable trailer at the rear end, which can be connected by a retractable hydraulic support. If your route is just a big straight line, which seems like a good mode of transportation, how do wind blade trailer load with wind turbine blade turn? Won't they be at risk of hitting a tree or barricade on the side of the road?  In fact, the shipping process is well thought out. The route requires extensive planning, trees, barricades, and even lampposts are removed, and the specific inflection point before the paddle is transported occurs at the top of the extendable trailer. But if the end goal is more difficult to reach, such as facing steep roads, cliffs and sharp turns, then a special blade lifter will come into play. These rotor blade adaptors contain a hydraulic lifting system that rotates the blades 360 degrees on the road to adjust the center of gravity and dodging areas. This means that the position of the blades can be adjusted according to the route, reducing the space required for the truck to turn and over high obstacles such as trees and houses. This design may not seem safer than a retractable trailer, but it is very practical in special cases, and it has been designed to carry 70 meters of blades, and has already conquered the steep slopes and sharp turns of many amazing mountains.

1500TON.M blade lifter

rotor blade adaptor in use

Wind turbine equipment mainly includes wind turbine blades, nacelles, hubs and wind towers, each of which belongs to the ODC over dimension cargo of ordinary road transportation, which needs to be transported by professional stretch flatbed trailer. For wind turbine blades, their length is extra-long, which has become the main feature that distinguishes them from other equipment of wind turbines. Considering the particularity of wind turbine blades, at present, the mountain wind farms built in China generally use blade lifter to complete the transportation task of wind turbine blades. The SPMT also can be the power source for the transportation of wind turbine equipment. The power and other performance of the SPMT directly affect the climbing performance of the blade lifter/rotor blade adaptor. There are many types of SPMT on the market, ranging from 100t to 300t according to the total mass of traction, and domestic SPMT and imported SPMT are divided according to manufacturers. There are two kinds of transportation modes, the first ordinary extendable trailer transportation mode generally adopts ordinary stretch trailer to transport wind turbine blades, the characteristics of the wind blade trailer are that it can be longitudinally telescopic to adapt to the blade transportation of different lengths, stretch trailer can be directly transported from the manufacturer to the wind mill position, but due to the super long wind turbine blade trailer, expandable trailer is difficult to turn.

SPMT

SPMT with load

The second kind of special vehicle transportation, this mode of transportation generally adopts a special blade transport vehicle of blade lifter. During the journey, the blades can be lifted and rotated 360 degrees by hydraulic control, avoiding various constraints and obstacles (mountain slopes, trees, houses, bridges, tunnels, etc.) during transportation, rotor trailer can greatly reduce the total length of the blade transport trailer length and improve the performance of passing curves.

blade lifter