Innovative equipment revolutionizes hauling of wind components

Hauling wind components has become a specialty of heavy haul companies throughout North America. Trailer manufacturers have made it easier to get involved in this business by producing trailers and transport systems designed specifically for hauling wind components. Blade haulers have become especially useful in handling and transporting these ever longer and fragile windmill pieces.

A TII Scheuerle SPMT system is used in the placement of a nacelle at an offshore wind staging facility.

“When the expansion of wind energy accelerated in the early 2000s, TII Scheuerle was already equipped with suitable transport solutions for the wind turbines of that era,” said Thomas Ziegler, head of sales for the specialized transport division of TII. “The modular heavy-duty vehicles, InterCombi and K25, provided optimal flexibility due to their modular construction, including associated decks.”

Larger and heavier

But technological advancements in wind turbine manufacturing have resulted in increasingly larger and heavier components, further complicating their transport.

“This evolution necessitated specialized equipment to handle these components while considering existing infrastructure constraints,” Ziegler said. “Today, we offer flexible specialized transport solutions for the largest rotor blades on the market with the BladeLifter for the ‘last mile,’ and the Rotor Blade Transport System (RBTS) for long-distance transport.”

Goldhofer is also a pioneer in the wind hauling market, according to Philipp Grosse, marketing director. Goldhofer’s wind transport solutions are in use in countless applications around the world.

“We’ve been designing [wind trailers] since the first generation of wind turbines,” Grosse said. “We maintain good relationships with the component manufacturers, which has given us a technological edge, particularly with the FTV 300, the first blade transporter.”

Grosse said the market is highly technical and requires a great deal of know-how and expertise.

“Although it may not seem so at first glance, the components of wind turbines are extremely sensitive and a challenging load due to their usually enormous dimensions,” he said. “The different cargoes each require special transport solutions, meaning that there are only a few ‘one-stop providers’ on the market.”

The blades of wind turbines are extremely long and extremely sensitive, Grosse said.

“For narrow mountain roads, urban journeys or wooded sections, Goldhofer has developed extremely flexible transport systems that can cope with even the most difficult types of passages,” Grosse said. “For high-quality components with sensitive technology, various vehicle types, such as our variable lowloader trailers and heavy-duty module combinations are utilized. You have to be able to completely trust your equipment in order to transport these components safely.”

Seventy-seven meter long blades are transported on a narrow passages using the Goldhofer FTV 850.

XL Specialized first started providing trailer solutions for the wind industry in 2009, according to Shane Michelson, director of sales.

“At XL, we have trailers specifically designed to transport each part of a wind turbine,” Michelson said. “The Lightweight 13 axle is a perfect solution for hauling the nacelle, the Blademate hauls blades and the Towermate moves the towers. XL is known for designing trailers specific to the customer’s loads, and our trailers for the wind energy market are no exception to that.”

The Faymonville Group has also been designing wind trailers for many years.

“The wind energy business is a highly volatile market, and wind power projects are often dependent on political decisions,” said Thomas Blaise, product manager at Faymonville North America. “Today, the expansion of renewable energies is a key issue, and the number of these projects is growing worldwide. We build trailers that are as appropriate and suitable as possible for the special loads demanded by the market, blades and tower [sections]. All our trailers are optimized in terms of weight, length, utility and the like.”

American manufacturer Trail King identified wind as an emerging market in the early 2000s.

Trail King’s front and rear Schnable goosenecks are engineered to be lightweight, but can handle increasingly heavy wind components.

“In 2002 the EFX was launched, and since that time we have sold over 350 EFX trailers,” said Ty Hanten, vice president of sales and marketing. “In 2003, a hydraulic double Schnable system was designed to haul the tower sections, which eventually led to being able to load and unload without the use of a crane.”

The market for wind component trailers ebbs and flows.

“The market for trailers specifically designed for hauling wind components is characterized by a high demand for specialized, robust and versatile transportation solutions,” said Ziegler at TII. “As wind turbines grow in size, the components such as rotor blades and tower segments require transport equipment that can handle their increasing length, weight and fragility. The market is driven by the continuous advancements in wind turbine technology and the need to transport these large components over varying terrains, including difficult-to-access wind farm locations.”

The wind market has proven to be turbulent over the years, with the main subsidy support in the U.S. coming from federal production tax credits, according to Trail King’s Hanten.

“[This] can cause a major downturn in the market or a major uptick, depending on timing,” Hanten said.

Following is an overview of various wind hauling trailers on the market today.

TII Scheuerle

The Scheuerle RBTS consists of a 2-axle jeep dolly together with a free-turning device and a 4-axle trailing unit. It is also possible to mount the free-turning device directly on the truck tractor. The lift of up to two meters in the free-turning device is also large enough to accommodate obstacles such as surface unevenness and bumps in the road.

The trailing unit combination can handle bends that cannot be mastered with a telescopic semi-trailer without having to remove any infrastructure, such as crash barriers. The RBTS can transport rotor blades up to more than 100 meters long.

“Given that the rotor blades of increasingly more powerful wind turbines are becoming ever larger, the RBTS is also a particularly future-proof solution,” Ziegler said. “Assembly of the wind blade is carried out according to the plug-and-play principle. With the help of a special lifting device, the wing root is comfortably picked up from the ground. The quick-coupling solution is comprised of the free-turning device along with the root adapter and a root frame that is connected to the blade root. This frame can then be secured to the free-turning device in next to no time with the help of the adapter. A clamping device on the trailer unit is used to fix the tip of the rotor blade into position. It can be adapted to accommodate rotor blades from other manufacturers.”

The fourth generation of the BladeLifter will be able to accommodate future rotor blades with lengths of more than 100 meters, especially in connection with the quick-change system and the ability to swivel and lift over obstacles. The maximum load moment of 900-meter tons can be used over the complete set-up angle of 60 degrees so that even heavier or longer rotor blades can be transported efficiently.

Scheuerle’s SPMT system and K25 modules are also well known in the wind industry.

Faymonville Group

Faymonville’s 9-axle HighwayMAX is a beneficial highway trailer for cutting down on up time prior to loading and to reduce empty weight to increase payload. It is a mainstay in wind energy projects in the U.S. With its legal payload of more than 174,000 pounds at 20,000 pounds per axle, and a technical payload of more than 249,000 pounds, the HighwayMAX becomes a real workhorse, Blaise said.

Faymonville’s 9-axle HighwayMAX was designed to cut down on set-up time prior to loading and to reduce empty weight to increase payload.

Faymonville has developed a flatdeck trailer that is ideal for long and bulky blades. The TeleMAX is available as a triple or four-time extender and is suited for wind blades as well as any other extremely long cargo. TeleMAX trailers were designed to be versatile and easy to use. Beyond the front extensions, the non-load-bearing pull-out, at 24 feet in length, permits a longer overhang, Blaise said.

Goldhofer

The latest generation of tower transporters from Goldhofer is the RA 2-110, which can transport tower sections with a weight of up to 110 tons and a diameter of up to 6.8 meters. The extra payload comes from the combination of a front bogie in the form of a four-axle dolly with pendulum axles and a heavy-duty THP/SL-S (285) module as the trailing dolly.

In 2020, Goldhofer further advanced the concept of the load functioning as the connecting element between the tractor unit and the trailer, with its BLADES blade hauler used in combination with a self-tracking trailing dolly.

Narrow passages can be navigated with blades longer than 100 meters. For the return trip, the combination can be operated as a semitrailer, with the trailer coupled to the free-turning device.

Goldhofer’s ADDRIVE with the FTV 850 blade carrier was introduced in 2023. The vehicle combines the advantages of a towed heavy-duty module with those of a self-propelled module. With its tractive force, it supports the tractor unit up to a speed of 31 mph. The driven axles are then disengaged automatically and can be re-engaged at lower speeds while driving. The ADDRIVE 2.0 is a cost-saving solution when switching from the support function on a public highway to working as a purely self-propelled vehicle for the final off-road section of the route.

XL Specialized

Iowa-based XL Specialized produces the XL Towermate, the XL Blademate and the XL Lightweight 13 Axle.

The XL Towermate hauls wind turbine towers and is equipped with a gooseneck and dolly design. Traversing uneven terrain and efficient hooking and unhooking are made possible by the Towermate’s Cheater-style hydraulic gooseneck.

The XL Blademate can be adjusted to fit several sizes and brands. XL’s extendable technology creates a hassle-free extension for the telescoping trailer beams and pullout bumper, the company said.

XL’s precision-machined telescoping Schnable can help mount the front of the tower and the self-steering rear dolly, allowing the tower to ride with its cradles and strapping points.

The XL Blademate is available in a four-beam design, and can come with a hydraulically-operated self-steering system or a bump-steer option. Both allow manual manueverability around obstacles.

The XL Lightweight 13 Axle carries wind turbine nacelles using a multi-axle combination of a Jeep, Mechanical Gooseneck Trailer and a Booster. The trailer can carry up to 170,000 pounds in 10 feet concentrated. The Lightweight 13 features a main deck that ranges from 10 feet wide to 30 feet long, as well as a detachable wheel area for additional deck sections if needed.