Onshore wind turbine in need for a manually installed lightweight crane

The challenge: design a crane which can assembled by hand in onshore wind turbine nacelles.

LiftWerx asked Eager.one to design a foldable crane that can be mounted and moved manually for an onshore wind turbine. The crane needs to be able to lift 800 kilogram, from 100m height with a 2.5m radius.

The engineers from Eager.one came up with the idea to use lightweight “trusses”. By putting the trusses together by hand the mast can be erected. The crane’s boom is attached by means of a pin in the middle of the mast, allowing the boom to slew with wheels around the mast.

Green engineering for onshore wind turbines

This new YawHook^TM technology allows 800 kg lifts to be performed. Because of using lightweight materials and an electric crane which lifts larger cranes into the turbine, there is no need for traditional cranes.

Once erected the crane can remove roof panels, exchange yaw drives and lift larger crane systems (like the LiftWerx HeliHook) into the nacelle.

“It was great being a member of the design team for this tool.”
Hubert Boter – Senior Project Engineer