Turbine transport
and assembly

The Brief

GE Renewable Energy (GE) is one of the world’s leading wind turbine suppliers. Strake Engineering was engaged by GE to assist with designing a solution to transport and assemble wind turbine structures from China to New South Wales.

The scope of work included:

• Designing steel structures for sea, land and self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT) supports of the 105T, WT19 machine head fixture

• Designing the steel skid to enable connection and installation of the 85T drive train to the 50T roto hub

• Assessing European designed and fabricated lifting devices to ensure they complied with Australian standards

• Verifying design elements using Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

Our Approach

The project required a detail orientated approach to address the complexities of the subcomponent structures, weights and dimensions. All relevant inputs were considered and applied to our modelling and design to ensure the solution suitably addressed these challenges.

With varying transport arrangements and loading conditions we maintained close collaboration with transport contractors to identify project considerations
and constraints.
Our team simplified the construction process and removed the need to procure a main crane for final assembly. We provided onsite support to oversee installation and achieve safe mobilisation of the turbine structures.

A versatile approach provided effective solutions that complied with Australian (AS) and GE global design standards. Our designed concept is now the global
standard for GE operations.